I. Collectors

Kunstkammer or ‘Kunst- und Wundercamern’ – as the chambers of art and curiosities were styled at Ambras Castle in 1594 – are a temporal institution of the 16th century. Created alongside royal treasuries, they continued to be filled with and enriched by the addition of objects from temporal and ecclesiastical treasuries on into the 18th century. They also bear witness to an age in which the change from admiring contemplation to science took place in many respects. This was the age which saw the first scholarly study of the remains of Roman architecture, catalogues of ancient inscriptions and coins, the systematic classification of fauna and the evolution of chemistry as a science from alchemy.

With a foot in both worlds, Kunstkammer and Wunderkammer reflected the admiration of what was exotic, curious and beautiful in all areas where they occurred, both in nature and in art, and, on the other hand, the new systematic ordering of all things. Many of the most important Kunstkammer were established within a breathtakingly short time in German-speaking countries: the Kunstkammer of Ferdinand II in the Tyrol (1529 – 1595), which he ultimately had installed in Ambras Castle near Innsbruck; further, that of his father, the Emperor Ferdinand I (1503 – 1564) in Vienna; that established by Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria (1528 – 1579) in Munich; the Kunstkammer of Augustus I (1526 – 1586) in Dresden and that of Wilhelm IV, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1532 – 1592) in Kassel. There is still evidence for much of what these Kunstkammer contained. Princes were not the only collectors; cities and the affluent mercantile classes were also avid connoisseurs and collectors. Their number included such resounding names as Imhoff, Fugger, Thurneisser von Thurn, Praun and Amerbach. However, whereas the collections amassed by the mercantile bourgeoisie often remained the work of a single individual, the Kunstkammer established by princes and kings usually continued to grow, due to the avidity evinced by successive generations of often obsessive collectors: the Emperor Rudolf II (1552 – 1612); Wilhelm V (1548 – 1626) and Maximilian I (1573 – 1651), Dukes of Bavaria; Christian I, Elector of Saxony (1560 – 1591), followed by his successors on down to Augustus the Strong (1670 – 1733) and Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1672 – 1632). They were proud to display their treasures and many of them also spent their leisure hours practising crafts, thus Maximilian I and later Max Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria, who were adepts at the lathe. It goes without saying that such collectors often became scholars through their Kunstkammer.