Cabinet of curiosities
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Cabinets of curiosities (also known as Wunderkammer or wonder-rooms) were collections of types of objects we now regard as quite separate, but whose boundaries were in the Renaissance yet to be defined. They included specimens we would now categorise as belonging to natural history (sometimes faked), geology, ethnography, archaeology, religious or historical relics, works of art, including cabinet paintings, and antiquities. Some belonged to rulers, aristocrats or merchants, others to early practitioners of science in Europe, and were precursors to museums of different sorts.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Cabinet of curiosities" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
