Habsburg Collections

Abstract

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the male and female Habsburg rulers of the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, and Portugal, amassed immense collections of natural and man-made objects and exhibited them in their palaces. Typically referred to as Kunstkammern (cabinets of curiosities) or Wunderkammern (cabinets of wonders) Habsburg collections played a crucial and prominent role in familial, domestic, and international politics. Consequently, Habsburg collections were renowned and emulated by the wealthy elite in Europe and beyond. The range and types of objects actively circulated and thoughtfully gathered together by this ruling family was vast. Established before the founding of modern museums and before modern artistic and scientific categories took hold, paintings and drawings by famous artists, antique sculpture, mineral deposits, ethnographic objects from the New World, natural specimens, scientific instruments, magical objects, regalia, and religious relics all mingled together in Habsburg collections. As the rulers housed, organized, displayed, and documented their collections in courtly residences, they permitted few people, beyond their inner circle and foreign rulers or their representatives, access to their array of precious, rare, exotic, and bizarre things. The function of each collection was multiple: on the one hand they served as a symbolic representation of the ruler’s power and realm, and on the other hand they served as active sites of knowledge utilized by individuals at Habsburg courts. A brief overview of the history of Habsburg collecting practices introduces the contents of their collections, the various ways in which objects entered the collections, some organizational principles of the collections, and the diverse functions of these collections during the early modern period.