1

Philipp Hainhofer and more than 30 unnamed artisans, craftsman, and their assistants. Uppsala Kunstschrank /Augsburg Konstskapet Cabinet constructed of ebony and oak woods. Inlaid with enamel images. Gilded in silver and gold. Adorned with naturalia and containing an abundance of curious objects PROVENANCE Gifted to the King of Sweden in Augburg in 1632. Brought to Svartzjo Castle the following year. Transferred with royal family to Uppsala Castle and donated to Uppsala University in 1694. On display in main building, Museum Gustavianum, Sweden. EXHIBITIONS Guided tour available at http://konstskapet.gustavianum .uu.se/webb/index.html RECENT LITERATURE Sverker Oredsson, Gustav II Adolf (Stockholm, 2007)
Figure 1 Philip Hainhofer (German/1632.)Uppsala Kunstschrank . Oak and Ebony, 94 x 47 (240 x 120) Uppsala, Museum Gustavianum

The Uppsala Kunstschrank also known as the Augsburg Konstskapet is a meticulously crafted cabinet

Johan Cederlund, The Augsburg Art Cabinet, translation Donald MacQueen (Uppsala, 2003)

FIGURE 1

serving as a microcosm, or miniature representation, of curiosities of the natural world. The early modern period in Europe marks a time of fascination, discovery, and indulgence

in art and contemplation of the natural world. And, it was displayed in private collections of art and nature throughout Europe, generally termed curiosity cabinets. The trend of collecting art and nature into a microcosm of the world was one of the vehicles that moved the study of natural philosophy across many classes of Europeans and through a scientific revolution in the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries. This essay will demonstrate how the Augsburg art cabinet procured by Philipp Hainhofer(1578-1647), a renowned architect and craftsman,1 is the ultimate representation of the microcosms which celebrated naturalia and its transformation into artificialia. Naturalia was a term used during this period to describe raw material found in the world. And, the naturalia manipulated by man for his purposes became artificialia. Additionally, the art cabinet exemplifies the merchants, mechanical artists, painters, engineers, and architects knowledge about the study and manipulation of nature.2 The Uppsala Kunstschrank is Dutch and the Dutch terminology for the types of curiosity cabinets held by early modern Europeans is of assistance in the clarification and evolution of these collections. Academic historians today tend to veer away from using the term curiosity cabinet because of its overuse;3 however, the less specific term encompasses the collections of a more general population of early modern Europeans. In order to clearly explain the purpose of the kunstschrank it must be stated how this piece of furniture evolved from a treasure chamber in a royal Dutch Castle into a piece of furniture worthy of being given to a prince.

Arthur MacGregor, Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 17. 2 Paula Smith, Art, Science, and Visual Culture in Early Modern Europe, Isis 97,1 (2006): 83-100. 3 Elisabeth Scheicher. "Kunstkammer." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online,, accessed October 16,

2012,http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T048290.

Preliminarily, before the fourteenth century Dutch royalty maintained a schatzkammer (treasure chamber) with the purpose of holding the royal familys valuables and what would be passed on as part of the royal dynasty. The chamber would hold the valuable possessions that represented monetary value like gold and jewels, insignia, as well as deeds and elements of inheritance for the next generations. The bulk of the schatzkammers contents would be objects easily liquidated in times of need. During the fourteenth to fifteenth century the dynasty began to add objects of, as Arthur MacGregor puts it, precious and exotic materials forming part of worldly riches treated in a manner that transcended considerations of mere wealth. 4 The chambers holding these riches took on another term, the kunstkammer (art chamber). The kunstkammer was defined by the concept that there was great value in the difficulty of producing the pieces, the artistry, and not just the sum of the costly materials of which they were made. This emphasized the importance of collecting art and towards incorporating the study of nature. As the world grew due to the discovery of the New World and the trend of maintaining curiosity cabinets for personal purposes spread across Europe, the next Dutch term emerged, wunderkammer. The wunderkammer is a chamber of wonders, as Lorainne Daston and Katherine Park state, containing:
precious metals, exotica and antiquities, specimens of exquisite workmanship, and natural and artificial oddities all crammed together in order to dazzle the onlooker. If each object by itself elicited wonder, all of them densely arrayed floor to ceiling or drawer upon drawer could only amplify the visitors gasp of mingled astonishment and admiration5

These collections combined the wonder of art and the wonder of nature.

4 5

Macgregor, Curiosity and Enlightenment, 9. Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 260.

The wunderkammern assisted in the allegory of nature in that they were a symbolic expression of a deeper meaning shown through scenes that demonstrated naturalia becoming artificialia. Through manipulation and the organization of the natural world, nature could be better understood or its true purpose could be displayed. Wunderkammern were an artistic representation of experimentation when experimentation was not yet an accepted practice of building knowledge in natural philosophy among the academics of early modern Europe.6 Moreover, every piece of the Uppsala Kunstschrank was a part of nature positioned or manipulated by man for the purpose of exploration and to contemplate a personal evaluation of the natural world. One cannot compare the mentality of early modern Europeans to that of the multitude of cultures of the twenty-first century; however, the fascination with the microcosm of natural wonders contained in the Uppsala Kunstschrank can still be observed today. On display at the Gustavianum, the Uppsala University of Swedens museum, the cabinet stands from floor to top around 7 . It is constructed of ebony wood inlayed with oak and the middle level is mounted onto the base with ball bearings allowing it to rotate 360 degrees equipped with step stools and arm rests that fold down in order to accommodate lengthy periods of exploration. The cabinet has been preserved and cared for by Uppsala University and many of the approximate 1,000 items have been used in class rooms for the purpose of teaching natural philosophy, then sciences, and history over the years. Because of this, some objects have been worn or broken and under gone repair, and are no longer available inside the cabinet.7 The cabinets crown is the naturalia of coral and conch shells composing a scene around a gilded Seychelles nut navigated by Venus (or Neptune), the goddess of love. The Seychelles
6

Peter Dear, The Alchemist, the Craftsman, and the Scholar in Revolutionizing the Sciences, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009), 47-63. 7 Museum Gustavianum, http://konstskapet.gustavianum.uu.se/webb/index.html.

nut is a type of coconut, also called the double coconut, from the Seychelles islands off of Africa. The coconut is quite unique and can only be found on these small islands. Therefore, the fact that it was the crown of the Upplsala Kunstchrank is appropriate for the study of exotic naturalia, also called exotica. The naturalia was set atop a tier decorated with a gallery of miniature paintings; many depicting scenes from the Bible and Greek mythology. The tiers interior is equipped with automata, pieces that moved by automatic mechanism such as a self playing piano. The cabinet is detailed and extravagant, and includes secret compartments and levers to open them. There are drawers and doors within doors holding materials to study including fine mathematical instruments, fossils, and even a mummified monkeys claw.8 Exotica played an essential role in the wunderkammer by representing the natural world that had previously been undiscovered. The voyages to Africa and Asia and the discovery of the New World in the fifteenth and sixteenth century9 changed Europeans willingness to accept the knowledge of natural philosophy they had been offered to them up to that point. According to Peter Dear, medieval philosophers relied on Aristotelian ideas that the intent to was to understand phenomena that were already known there [was] no pressing sense in which scholastic natural philosophers thought of their enterprise as one of making new discoveries.10 The further ship voyages due to the invention of the compass brought items back to Europe that were never known to exist. The exotica was not only considered expensive because of the difficulty and the travel it needed to attain, it was also symbolic of a world yet to be discovered. Moreover, collecting exotica and manipulating it gave Europeans more than status or wealth; it gave them power of knowledge about the expanded natural world.

8 9

Daston and Park, Wonders and the Order, 255-61. Daston And Park, Wonders and the Order, 136. 10 Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences, 3-7.

Philipp Hainhofer (1578-1647) was the only man that made cabinets that were a wunderkammer shrunken down to a piece of furniture and he accomplished six in his lifetime. Each cabinet was purchased either by or for royalty. However, the Augsburg Kunstskapet is the only one in which both the furniture and the collection has been preserved and only one of two remaining in existence. Hainhofer played a vital role in the merchant/trade/exotica circuit working with wealthy and powerful merchant-banking families11 and serving as an agent to several German princes. He not only responded to their requests, but trained their tastes. The procurement of each piece contained or built in to the cabinet passed through the hands of many classes of Europeans in the trade circuit, each with the understanding that he could profit from it.12 Additionally, the 30 artisans and craftsman working to produce each piece in the art cabinet were men whom some authors of the early modern period would claim had true knowledge of nature, because they had mastered it through manipulation. These claims were difficult to accept socially at the beginning of the sixteenth century, since it would mean a change in social class for artisans and craftsman. Never the less, by the end of the sixteenth century the value placed on their abilities was commonly accepted.13 The Uppsala Kunstschrank was presented to Gustuvus Adolphus, the King of Sweden from the protestant governors of Augsburg. It had taken six years (1625-1631) to produce and was purchased from Hainhofer to give to the King when he marched into Augsburg. The King died six months later and the cabinet was brought to Svartzjo Castle in Sweden. The cabinet moved to Uppsala Castle with the royal family and was later donated to Uppsala University. It is

11

Mark A Meadow, Merchants and Marvels: Hans Jacob Fugger and the Origins of the Wunderkammer in Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, (New York: Routlege, 2002) 182200. 12 Pamela Smith and Paula Findlen, introduction to Merchants and Marvels, pg 1. 13 Dear, Revolutionizing the Sciences, 50-55.

now in the Museum Gustavianum of the main building. Uppsala University calls it one of the foremost attractions at the University.14 The Uppsala Kunstschrank is the epitome of curiosity cabinets and with its approximate 1,000 finely crafted secret compartments, levers, medical instruments, exotica, miniatures, and automata it was quite a prestigious gift. More importantly, it illustrates the value of collecting art and nature. The people involved in composing the cabinet; the merchants that acquired many of its materials, Hainhofer - a skilled architect and cabinet maker, the many artisans that produced the intricate parts, and the royalty that received them all demonstrate a network of early modern Europeans engaged in exploring and manipulating nature. Furthermore, the trend of maintaining curiosity cabinets performed an invaluable role in creating a climate in early modern Europe that certain historians would later call the scientific revolution."

14

Museaum Gustavianum, http://konstskapet.gustavianum.uu.se/webb/index.html.

Caspar Ulich Handstein mit der Auferstehung Christi Silver ore with gold chalice pedestal.

PROVENANCE Archduke Ferdinand II. Kusthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

REFERENCES TO ARTWORK Pheonix Art Museum, Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper, 15751775, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

FIGURE 1

Figure 1 Caspar Ulich (Czech Rep., 1556-62). Handstein mit der Auferstehung Christi. Silver, 12 x 4 (31x7) Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum

This palm-able statue of the Resurrection of Christ (figure 1) is a type of sculpture called handstein. The handstein (hand-stone) is a sample of virtuosi, what early modern Europeans called a rich combination of art and nature. Handstein have been described by Arthur MacGregor as topographical confections15 since they were made from ore minerals, and

15

Arthur MacGregor, Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 23.

formed into miniature earthly scenes, often depicting miners lives and religious beliefs. This particular handstein made from silver ore is symbolic of nature, faith, and art; and how different classes of people in early modern Bohemia connected and viewed these subjects. The first class of Bohemians to touch the silver ore of the handstein (figure 1) was the miners who displayed a close relationship with the earth and a culture rooted in faith in Christ. The German mines were a hothouse for chemical, technological, and earth sciences.16 However these terms were not used during the early modern period and should be summed up in the subject of natural philosophy. Miners discovered and used a great deal of knowledge of nature that was not retrieved from the scholarly study of natural philosophy. As they burrowed into the sides of mountains and unearthed the mineral ores, no one could have had truer empirical knowledge of that part of nature. The mines in central Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were a primary economic activity. They swarmed with workers participating in different processes beginning with extracting the ore from the earth to minting it into money or preparing it for other uses, like instruments, tools, and more. Most Europeans depended on the mines.17 Furthermore, they were attracted to the mining towns and fascinated by the production. Thus the mines became a popular subject of many artists in the period. A great deal of artwork and published poetry produced in the sixteenth century depicted mining scenes and pointed to their faith.18 The handstein typically had biblical representations and the Resurrection scene in figure 1 is a prized example.

16

Andre Wakefield, Science and Silver for the Kammer in The Disordered Police State: German Cameralism as Science and Practice, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 113. 17 Wakefield, Science and Silver for the Kammer, 112. 18 Michael K. Komanecky, Artists Views of the Miners World in Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper 1575-1775, Phoenix Art Museum, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 5053.

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Caspar Ulich created the scene on the Handstein it der Auferstehung Christi (figure 1), and he is one of only a few known handstein makers. He composed many handstein located in the kunstkammer, or art collection of Archduke Ferdinand II of Bohemia.19 Additionally, Caspar Ulich has been noted as being die-cutter for Ferdinand IIs mint and would have had direct contact with the miners when receiving the silver ore for minting or his artwork.20 It is unknown who was the first to create hanstein and there is little information available about whether Ferdinand II requested the many handstein or if he began his acquisitions after they came to his attention. Either way, Caspar Ulich was a social link between the laboring miners and the royalty of Bohemia.

Figure 2 Caspar Ulich (Czech Rep., 1556-62). Handstein mit der Auferstehung Christi. Silver, 12 x 4 (31x7) Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
19 20

Figure 3 Albrecht Durer (German, 1510) The Resurrection from The Great Passion. Woodcut, 15 x 11(39 x 28) Chicago, The Wrenn Memorial Collection, Art Institute of Chicago

Komanecky, Artists Views, 59. Wakefield, Science and Silver for the Kammer, 112.

11

Handstein it der Auferstehung Christi (figures 1 and 2) was modeled after Durers woodcut the Resurrection (figure 3), the final panel of the Great Passion;21 the likeness of which is quite remarkable. Johann Mathesius (1562) praised this piece saying that, The most beautiful specimen that I have seen in my time was a silver ore with noble markings on which the Resurrection of the son of God with his tomb and guards was artistically carved. There was a transformation that the love of the Lord made even the silver white.22 If this were a harbinger, or sign from God maybe it could have been treated as a relic and placed at an altar instead of a kunstkammer, idealized as being secular. However, Peter Mason deduced that it is historians that interpreted the meaning behind objects such as this in that they passed between either religious or secular depending on where they were placed and not the other way around. 23 The Resurrection of Christ scene is on the front of the handstein and is only one of two scenes. The back of the sculpture shows a representation of a meeting between Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and King Franois I of France after the Battle of Pavia in 1525. The Holy Roman Emperor was Ferdinand IIs uncle. Consequently, Charles V captured King Franois I during the battle and thus the meeting did not take place as the scene illustrates. An inscription on the sculpture reads PLVS OVLTRA"; "FATA DABVNT AQVILAM TE GALLVM VINCERE POSSE * REGNET AVIS CHRISTI NE MODO LAEDAT OVES"24 The inscription is a message and refers to fate giving success and that only Christ can harm it, rejoice. This is likely a dedication and was meant to be a gift to one of them. Considering that Charles V was Ferdinand IIs uncle it could have been made for him; however, it begs the question, why was it

21

Clarissa D. Flint, The Great Passion by Albrecht Drer, Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago (1907-1951), 29, 5 (1935): 61-65. 22 Johann Mathesius, Sarepta, trans. Michael K. Komanecky (Nuremberg: 1562) 344-345 23 Peter Mason, A Dragon Tree in the Garden of Eden, Journal of the History of Collections, 18, 2 (2006): 168-185. 24 This is a general translation, still a little vague, "More than the fate of the eagle, you will be able to overcome. Master of ancestry only Christ can harm rejoice.

12

not given to him? Perhaps it is because the meeting did not occur causing it to become an inaccurate representation of events. For whatever reason, this gift was never given and it has remained in Archduke Ferdinand IIs collection. The handstein is currently on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna. Archduke Ferdinand IIs collections included arms and armor, antiquities, and natural and manmade curiosities. Mostly, he favored the virtuosi,25 a blend of art and nature. Handstein were one of the more unique and noteworthy items of his kunstkammer. The inventory taken a year after his death recorded around 35 handstein.26 The pieces typically showed religious and/or mining scenes, and displayed the relationship between faith, art, and nature. Moreover, handstein sculptures kept part of the ore untouched offering up raw minerals to be observed. The untouched ore served as a mountain backdrop to scenes created on them. These pieces blurred the line between nature and art or artifact (manmade) and this combination is known to early modern Europeans as virtuoso. Virtuoso was an enticing subject during this period since it produced a great deal of debate between people inclined to define where the line was drawn between nature and art.27 Ferdinand II was one of many early modern Europeans inspired to collect and celebrate items blending art and nature. In summary, the Handstein it der Auferstehung Christi, by Caspar Ulich incorporated a great deal of early modern Bohemian views of nature, faith, and art. From the laboring miners to metal workers to artists to Ferdinand II, the handstein holds a part of each persons influence on and impressions of natural resources. The sculpture is a rough lump of silver ore fashioned into

25

For further reading on the relationship between art and the study of nature see: Craig Ashley Hanson, The English Virtuoso, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). 26 Komanecky, Artists Views, 59. 27 Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 265-77

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art, and deservingly displayed in the collection of the Archduke of Bohemia over 400 years ago. Today the artifact can be observed at the Kunsthorisches Museum in Vienna; a current kunstkammer.

14

Unknown Artist. The Turke Plum Ripe 16 Sept Watercolor on vellum paper from Manuscript: Tradescants Orchard. Folio #: fol. 088r. Early 17th Century after 1611. Bodleian Library, Oxford. PROVENANCE The manuscript of Tradescants Orchards passed from John Tradescant the Elder to John Tradescant, his son upon his death, April 1638. Was part of the Tradescants collection acquired by Elias Ashmole after the passing of Tradescant the Younger in 1662. Ashmole endowed collection to University of Oxford in 1683, now the Ashmolean Museum. The manuscript is held by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. EXHIBITIONS A New Flowering: 1000 Years of Botanical Art 'what is a treasure in the twenty-first century?' The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 2nd May 11th September 2005 Treasures of the Bodleian 30th Sept 2011 to 23rd Dec 2011 The exhibition brought together some of the rarest, most important and most evocative objects in the world. It also asked the question, http://treasures.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/treas ures-home

Figure 2 the Turke plum ripe 16 September from the Tradescants Orchard manuscript. (English, early 1600s) folio 088r. Bodleian Library, Oxford

The Turke plum ripe September 16th is representative of early modern Europeans culture of collecting that was not simply about discovering pure knowledge of nature or about the establishment of an

REFERENCES TO ARTWORK Barrie Juniper and Hannecke Grootenboer. The Tradescants Orchard: The Mystery of a Seventeenth-Century Painted Fruit Book. University Chicago Press, June 2013. FIGURE 1

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exchange economy through art and nature, but as a combination of the two.28 Moreover, the watercolor is complimented by an obscure provenance that demonstrates the significance of collecting and possessing art and nature in early modern Europe. Europeans of this period developed a trend distinguished by their need to seek out answers about the natural world by collecting samples of it into curiosity cabinets.29 The culture of collecting art and nature in early modern Europe was especially developed and many historians have identified two major spectrums of collecting; the empirical scholars studying natural philosophy and the opportunistic exchange economy that influenced the commoditization of art and nature. The two cultures differences were perceived by passion; the first with a passion for knowledge and the second a passion for trade. Most curiosity cabinets fell between the two major spectrums and were a myriad of personal representations of individual studies of the natural world that incorporated both the empirical scholars and the exchange economy instead of distinguishing them as separate cultures. Many Europeans traveled and toured these curiosity cabinets with the desire to explore the natural world.30 Additionally, these tourists influenced the movement from private collections to public museums. The Ark was the first public cabinet of curiosities that anyone could view for a price31 and is an example of a collection that falls in the middle of a serious natural study and the exchange economy. The Ark was the original home of the watercolor folio in figure 1 and is a micro-slice of an art and nature collection. The story of the Turke plum will be told after further reflection on the two polarized cultures.

28 29

Lorraine Daston and Katherine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, (New York: Zone Books, 1998), 265-77 Arthur MacGregor, Curiosity and Enlightenment: Collectors and Collections from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 1-5. 30 John Evelyn, Diary of John Evelyn, ed. Austin Dobson, (New York: MacMillian Publishing, 1906) 185-345. 31 Amy Boesky, "Outlandish-Fruits: Commissioning Nature for the Museum of Man, ELH, 58, 2, (1991): 305-330.

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The first significant group that maintained a passion for collecting natures treasures was the scholars of natural philosophy who believed in the empirical way of attaining knowledge of nature, or first-hand observation. They were driven to document and analyze all material and written work to find knowledge. The scholarly way of maintaining a curiosity cabinet was to sort and label all things found in the world around them. The discovery of the New World showed the early modern Europeans that there was much more to be learned about natural philosophy than what had been documented from the ancients of Europe. Later in the seventeenth century it was commonly accepted by natural philosophers that the way to build on knowledge was by fully documenting the construction of information.32 These scholars cataloged and classified every little piece of nature. One of these scholars was Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), a well respected physician who kept a private museum in Bologna. Though his methods of collecting and documenting for the study of natural philosophy during his lifetime were not a common practice in the university, Aldrovandis museum was renowned as a place for students of medicine to learn how to produce their own pharmacia through the study of plants. Aldrovandi had originally developed an interest in botany because of the ever changing need that physicians had to make their own medicines. And through his studies, he amassed a great learning collection. His collections progressed from plants and published many tomes on sorts of animals and insects. His catalogs were made up of drawings and paintings by working artists to produce an accurate likeness and note differences among species. 33 Aldrovandis catalogs were so highly respected that they

32

Peter Dear, Extra-Curricular Activities: New Homes for Natural Knowledge in Revolutionizing the Sciences, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 99-126, 110-12. 33 Janice Neri, Cutting and Pasting Nature into Print in The Insect and the Image: Visualizing Nature in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1700, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 27-74.

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became a reference for others to request a specimen through a currier when they had never before seen the specimen.34 The opposite collectors that commoditized nature through a trade economy were influenced by the Dutch royalty and their cabinets of curiosity: wunderkammern and kunstkammern.35 They collected for status and entertainment. The cabinets would be filled with rare metals and minerals, exotica, and anything strange that deviated from the typical order of nature. These items were usually fashioned into works of art and displayed as a representation of how important the collector was. The growing middle class in early modern Europe enlightened and empowered by money, art, and discovery of the New World developed a culture modeled after the Dutch royals that some have dubbed the bourgeoisie.36 Some empirical scholars of early modern Europe would criticize the frivolous collections of the bourgeois and focus on how to explain away wonder through truth. Meaning that it was silly to collect things that were fascinating because one did not fully understand them, rather items should be collected in order to understand them.37 The bourgeoisie culture created an opportunity to profit from the trade of these items and encouraged the commoditization of nature. The trade circuit and merchants perpetuated the trend of Europeans collecting outside of the scholarly classes. This affected many natural philosophers desire to distinguish themselves apart from the trade economy of art and nature exotica. The separation was important because scholars were immersed in a shift of

34

Daniel Margoscy, Refer to folio and number:Encyclopedias, the Exchange of Curiosities,and Practices of Identification before Linnaeus, Journal of the History of Ideas, 71, 1 (2010): 56-98. 35 Cabinet of wonder and art cabinet respectively, see essay on the Uppsala Kunstschrank for further details on these terms. 36 Paula Findlen, Inventing Nature: Commerce Art and Science in the Early Modern Cabinet of Curiosities , Merchants and Marvels, ( New York: Routledge, 2002) 297. 37 Mary Baine Campbell, The Nature of Things and the Vexation of Art, Wonder and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern Europe, (Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1999).

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accepted practices of attaining knowledge and the frivolity of the trade of curiosities was a distraction to the process. However, many collectors were caught between diligently documenting the world and their fascination with art and nature that created the opportunity to commoditize it in early modern Europe. Each collector had individual perceptions of how to assemble a representation of the natural world that teetered and moved between each culture. The impressive public collection, the Ark and the folio (figure 1) of a plum was bestowed upon Europe by John Tradescant the Elder and his son John Tradescant the younger often referred to as the Tradescants. The watercolor and the rest of the collection incorporated all purposes of maintaining a curiosity cabinet. The watercolor is a study of a plum branch with snails and a butterfly sort of inserted into the scene with a caption, the Turke Plum: Ripe 16th September. More attention was given to the details of the flora than the fauna in the watercolor. The folio (figure 1) comes from a manuscript posthumously named Tradescants Orchard which is a collection of watercolors on vellum later bound by another avid collector, Elias Ashmole who had acquired the collection after the deaths of both John Tradescants. The provenance of the folios in this manuscript is a story illustrating the influence of these collections on early modern Europeans desire to collect, classify, and possess nature. John Tradescant the Elder, born around 1570 was an accomplished botanist and gardener throughout his life. He had built a reputation for himself by importing exotica for gardens and his first recorded trip was to the Netherlands in 1611. Tradescant was purchasing trees for Walter Cope (c.1553-1614) who was also known for having an extraordinary cabinet of curiosities. After gardening for the Duke of Buckingham John Tradescant the Elder was appointed as the keeper of the Royal Vines and Trees at Oakland, the primary residence of the

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Queen by 1630. It was through the commissions from distinguished employers to import naturalia from overseas that Tradescant was able to build his own collection of exotica and rarities. After purchasing a home in Lambeth, he moved his family there and assembled the first public cabinet of curiosities. Tradescant named his collection the Ark. It was praised for displaying nature in its true form and artistically positioning art and nature to show ironic relationships meant to entertain the onlooker. 38 The Tradescant collection is currently on display at the Ashmolean and The Tradescants Orchard manuscript is kept in the Bodleian Library. Both are at Oxford University where Elias Ashmole endowed the Ark. The manuscript is comprised of 66 surviving watercolor illustrations of fruiting trees. Most of the watercolors appear to have been painted by the same artist with few exceptions. They were bound by Elias Ashmole (1617-1692). He was an avid collector of remarkable objects and would acquire them by, it seems, any means necessary.39 Ashmole had the watercolors bound with his own coat of arms in silver on the binding and many pages were cut to fit in one book. It would seem that this was an attempt to obscure the origin of the watercolors and take credit for them. The cropping of pages resulted in the loss of illustrations or captions and in one case Ashmole rewrote the caption himself. The Turke Plum Ripe 16 Sept (fig. 1) is folio number 88r inside the manuscript and the number 88 is marked in the right hand corner with the caption written at the bottom of the page. All captions aside from the one

38 39

Boesky, "Outlandish-Fruits," 305-330. Marjorie Swan, Curiosities and Texts: The Culture of Collecting in Early Modern England, (Philidelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 49. There is a controversial story behind the way Ashmole treated the younger John Tradescants widow, Hester to obtain this the Ark. Legal proceedings over the succession of ownership found in favor of Ashmole, but allowed Hester to possess the collection as long as she lived. Ashmole had moved in next door to Hester after the legal battle of ownership of the Ark and repeatedly harassed her. He slowly moved pieces from the collection to his home next door. Five years after Ashmole became her neighbor, Hester drowned in a pond on the grounds of the Ark.

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that Ashmole rewrote have the same handwriting.40 Due to the obscure way Ashmole compiled the manuscript, it remains unknown who the artist was or even who wrote the caption. The Turke plum ripe September 16th incorporated the diversity among early modern Europeans cultures of collecting. In early modern Europe each curiosity cabinet was a personal representation of how a collector viewed the natural world. The Ark from which the watercolor came, celebrated nature in many different ways at once. It showed that knowledge of nature could be sorted, classified, manipulated, and possessed or purchased by man. Yet, no matter how much knowledge of it man had, he will continue to be surprised by oddities and exceptions. Although curiosity cabinets of early modern Europe were not simply one kind or another, the need to split up and classify the different aspects of collecting art and nature is a testament of the significance behind these collections and the peoples individual desires to study the natural world.

40

This is a personal observation and not from a handwriting expert.