Grollier de Serviere, the brothers Monconys: Curiosity and collecting in seventeenth-century Lyon

Abstract

Of collections in seventeenth-century Lyon, we can know most about the collection of machine models created by Grollier de Serviere, and the general collection amassed by the traveller Balthazar de Monconys and his brother Gaspard. Comparison of the eighteenth-century published catalogue of Grollier's collection with accounts given of it by contemporary visitors reveals changes in the perception and presentation of the collection between 1650 and 1710, while comparison of the two collections reveals differences in the nature of ‘curiosity’ even within the seventeenth century.