Collecting East and West by Susan Bracken PDF

Collecting East and West
Edited by
Susan Bracken, Andrea M. Gldy

and Adriana Turpin
Collecting East and West,

Edited by Susan Bracken, Andrea M. Gldy and Adriana Turpin
This book first published 2013
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
12 Back Chapman Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2XX, UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright 2013 by Susan Bracken, Andrea M. Gldy and Adriana Turpin and contributors
All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
ISBN (10): 1-4438-4779-8, ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-4779-7
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations .................................................................................... vii

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... xi
List of Abbreviations ................................................................................ xiii
Foreword ................................................................................................... xv
Introduction .............................................................................................. xix
Arthur MacGregor
Chapter Abstracts ................................................................................ xxxvii
Chapter One ................................................................................................. 1
Occidentalism in Ancient Assyria
Allison Karmel Thomason
Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 17
Diplomacy and Collecting: The Choiseul-Gouffier Collection
and its History
Patrick Michel
Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 41
Comparing East and West: Enrico Cernuschis Collections of Art
Reconsidered
Silvia Davoli
Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 61
Collecting Feathers: A Journey from Mexico into Italian Collections
(16th to 17th century)
Corinna Tania Gallori
Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 83
The Display of Exotica in the Uffizi Tribuna
Adriana Turpin
vi
Table of Contents
Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 119

South, East and North: The Swedish Royal Collections and Dowager
Queen Hedwig Eleonora (1636-1715)
Lisa Skogh
Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 137
Bertins Chinese Collection: From Curiosity to Knowledge
Constance Bienaim
Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 147
The Olga-Julia Wegener and Arthur Morrison Collections of Chinese
Paintings in the British Museum
Michelle Ying-Ling Huang
Bibliography ............................................................................................ 167
Authors Biographies............................................................................... 201
Index ........................................................................................................ 205
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1: Map of the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean. (source and
Trustees of the British Museum).
Figure 2: Bronze bowl from Nimrud (source and Trustees of the British
Museum).
Figure 3: Relief from the palace of Ashurnasirpal II, Nimrud (source and
Trustees of the British Museum.
Figure 4: Relief from the palace of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh (source and Trustees
of the British Museum).
Figure 5: Relief from the palace of Sargon II, Khorsabad. Muse du Louvre/RNA
(source and RMN-Grand Palais [Muse du Louvre] / Art Resource,
NY/Herv Lewandowski).
Figure 6: M.F. Dien after Boilly, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, lithograph (source:
private collection).
Figure 7: L.F.S. Dupr, LAcropole, vue de la maison du consul de France, M.
Fauvel, lithograph (source: private collection).
Figure 8: A draped seven-foot high headless female figure, drawing (source: Paris,
BNF, Prints and Drawings, GB 15 C Petit Fol).
Figure 9: Choiseul marble (source: Paris, Muse du Louvre, dpartment des
Antiquits grecques, trusques et romaines).
Figure 10: Cernuschi's photographic portrait, 1876 (source: Archivio Museo del
Risorgimento, Milan).
Figure 11: Title-page of the Cernuschi sale catalogue, 25-26 May 1900, Galerie
Georges Petit, Paris (source: Silvia Davoli).
Figure 12: View of the principal gallery, 1897 (source: LIllustration, 1897).
Figure 13: Kinrande Ewer, red and gold on porcelain, China, sixteenth century,
M.C. 3221 (source, photographic credit and Muse Cernuschi / RogerViollet).
Figure 14 a & b: Two medallions representing Leonardo da Vinci and Aristotle on
the faade of the Cernuschi Museum (source: Silvia Davoli).
Figure 15: Mexican artist, Mass of St. Gregory, 1539, Auch, Muse des Jacobins
(source: photo Auch, Muse des Jacobins).
Figure 16: Mexican artist, Mitre with Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus and
Mary, before 1566, Milan, Museo del Duomo (source: Kunsthistorisches
Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut; Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di
Milano).
Figure 17: Milan Mitre with Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary,
photograph taken in 1924-1925 (source: scan from Mario Salmi: Il tesoro del
Duomo di Milano II. Dedalo 2 [1924-1925], 370 Veneranda Fabbrica del
Duomo di Milano).
viii
List of Illustrations
Figure 18: Mexican artist, Mitre with Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus and
Mary (verso), before 1586, Firenze, Museo degli Argenti (source:
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut; reproduced with
the permission of the Ministero per i Beni e le Attivit Culturali).
Figure 19: Mexican artist, detail of the Crucified Christ, from Mitre with
Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, before 1566, Milano, Museo
del Duomo (source: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max-PlanckInstitut; Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano.
Figure 20: Mexican artist, detail of a hand, from St. Ambrose, before 1668, Loreto,
Archivio Storico della Santa Casa (source: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz
Max-Planck-Institut; image reproduced with the permission of the
Delegazione Pontificia per il Santuario della Santa Casa di Loreto. Tutti i diritti
riservati alla Delegazione Pontificia per il Santuario della Santa Casa di Loreto
sulle opere di sua competenza).
Figure 21: The seventh wall of the Tribuna from La Galleria nel sec XVIII La
Tribuna, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi 4583F. (source: authors
photograph with permission from the Soprintendenza Speciale per il
Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della
citt di Firenze).
Figure 22 A Silver Mountain of the Resurrection and Adoration, second half of the
sixteenth century, from the workshop of Concz Welcz (1532-1555) (source:
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).
Figure 23: A Chinese rhinoceros horn cup with Florentine mounts, late sixteenth
century, inv. Bg IV n.7m, Museo degli Argenti, Florence (source:
Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed
Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della citt di Firenze).
Figure 24: A small Aztec idol in jade, Museo degli Argenti (source:
Figure 25: Buontalenti drawing of mask on console, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe
degli Uffizi 2360A (source: authors photograph with permission from the
Figure 26: Jrgen Ovens. Hedwig Eleonora of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, Queen
of Sweden, before 1654, Nationalmuseum, NMGrh 1222 (source:
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).
Figure 27: David Klcker Ehrenstrahl, Melon, 1678, Private Collection at
Ericsberg Palace (source: photo by Marianne Setterblad, photo editing by Jran
Ramhllen).
Figure 28: David Klcker Ehrenstrahl, Polar Bear, 1668, Nationalmuseum,
NMDrh 566 (source: Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).
Figure 29: David Klcker Ehrenstrahl, Jacob Momma Reenstierna, 1671, NMGrh
2351 (source: Nationalmuseum, Stockholm).
Figure 30: Lacquered Chest, Momoyama period, c.1600, Japan, The Swedish
Royal Collections (source: Kungl. Husgerdskammaren).
Figure 31: Frau Olga-Julia Wegener standing next to Tiger by Torrent, attributed
ix
to Muqi (active thirteenth century), in the exhibition of her collection of

Chinese painting at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Berlin between 9
December 1908 and 10 January 1909 (source: photograph reproduced from
George Wegener, Madeleine: Ein Strauss aus unserm Garten. Olga-Julia, zum
21. Mrz 1910, unserem zehnten Hochzeitstag [1910]).
Figure 32: Claimed to be by Zhao Chang, Geese, late Qing dynasty. Hanging
scroll. Ink and colours on silk (source and Trustees of the British Museum).
Figure 33: Cixi [probably by Miao Jiahui], Peach Tree Bough, Qing dynasty.
Hanging scroll. Ink and colours on silk (source and @Trustees of the British
Museum).
Figure 34: Painted in the style of Wu Wei, Lady Lao Yu with a Phoenix, Ming
dynasty. Hanging scroll. Ink and colours on silk (source and Trustees of the
British Museum).
ABBREVIATIONS
ALB
AMR
AN.
ARSI
ASF
ASM
ASP
ASR
A-V&A
BNF
British Library,
Add. MSS
C.H.A.N.
CLFP, FGA
GM
LBPD, BM
M.C.
MMTSC, BMCA
NMDrh
NMGrh
OP, BMCA
Archive of Laurence Binyon, British Library,

London
Archivio Museo del Risorgimento, Milano
Archives Nationales, Paris
Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu
Archivio di Stato di Firenze
Archivio di Stato di Modena
Archivio di Stato di Pisa
Archivio di Stato di Roma
Minutes and Original Papers at the Archive of the
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Bibliothque nationale de France
British Library Additional Manuscripts
Centre Historiques des Archives Nationales
Charles Lang Freer Papers, Freer Gallery of Art/Arthur
M. Sackler Gallery Archives, Washington D. C.
Guardaroba Medicea
Letter Books of the Department of Prints and
Drawings, The British Museum, London
Muse Cernuschi
Minutes of Meetings of Trustees Standing
Committee, British Museum Central Archives
Nationalmuseum Drottningholm
Nationalmuseum Gripsholm
Original Papers, British Museum Central Archives
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We as the editors of this volume would like to thank first of all the
contributors to our fourth volume of collected essays for their articles and
for their collaboration during the editing process. These essays are based
on conference papers given at the Collecting East & West conference held
in Florence in June 2009. As always speakers and organisers have
benefitted from the participation of the audience; thank you for your
feedback and for attending our seminars and conferences. Our particular
thanks go to Arthur MacGregor for his Introduction to this volume.
The conference was held at The British Institute of Florence and at
Florence University of the Arts, whose administrative support during the
conference was important for the success of this conference. We also owe
thanks to IHR administrative staff who have supported our seminars and
conferences in the most helpful manner. Particular thanks go to the
directors of the Bargello, of the Stibbert Museum, and of Villa I Tatti for
access and hospitality, and to the English Church of St Marks for hosting
the pre-conference reception.
We would like to thank Sara King for her valuable help with the
formatting of the bibliography.
We are very grateful to Georg Laue at Kunstkammer Georg Laue for
kindly putting the cover image at our disposal.
Finally, we wish to thank Amanda Millar and Soucin Yipsou at
Cambridge Scholars Publishing for yet another beautiful volume in this
series.
FOREWORD
Lord Emsworth sat and smoked and sipped and smoked again, at peace
with all the world. His mind was nearly as blank as it is possible for the
human mind to be.
The hand which had not the task of holding the cigar was at rest in his
trouser pocket. The fingers of it fumbled idly with a small hard object.
Gradually it filtered into his lordships mind that this small object was
not familiar. It was something newsomething that was neither his keys,
his pencil, nor his small change.
He yielded to a growing curiosity, and drew it out.
He examined it.
It was a little something, rather like a fossilized beetle. It touched no
chord in him. He looked at it with an amiable distaste.
Now, how in the world did that get there? he said. [...]
He handed the thing to his secretary. Rupert Baxters eyes lit up with a
sudden enthusiasm. He gasped.
Magnificent! he cried Superb!
It is a scarab, Lord Emsworth, and, unless I am mistakenand I think
I may claim to be something of an experta Cheops of the Fourth
Dynasty. A wonderful addition to your museum. [...]
Extremely kind of Mr. Peters! he [Lord Emsworth] said. Really,
there is something almost oriental in the lavish generosity of our American
cousins.
P.G. Wodehouse, Something Fresh (1915), republished by Mayflower:
London, 1961, 42-3.
What is it that makes the same object something to be looked at with

amiable distaste by one party while the other considers it a wonderful
addition to a museum? Part of it has to do with the exotic provenance of
the object itself which makes it strange and distasteful to Lord Emsworth
and magnificent to Rupert Baxter. Their difference is to be explained by
their different levels of knowledge. Lord Emsworth, the owner of the
museum at Blandings Castle, takes the scarab at face value, so to speak. It
looks like a fossilised beetle and, therefore, to the un-initiated belongs
with the odds and ends habitually carried in ones pocket. Baxter, to the
contrary, is something of an expert in Egyptian artefacts and thus
immediately recognises its subject matter, provenance, and can even
distinguish the period of its creation. Hence his knowledge adds immense
xvi
Foreword
value to an object unfamiliar to many in Britain but, of course, nothing out

of the ordinary in ancient Egypt.
If collecting the rare and valuable is an entirely normal trait of human
behaviour, amassing objects from far-away places has also long played a
role in the history of collecting. East and West, or North and
South for that matter, are of course entirely relative to ones particular
geographical position. Therefore, it is interesting that collecting exotic
objects is an endeavour that unites humanity over millennia and round the
globe. The ancient Assyrians did so as assiduously as eighteenth-century
collectors in Paris or London; Chinese emperors collected Western art and
artefacts at a time when Western collectors started to gather china,
lacquered furniture, or South-east Asian prints. Key factors were, of
course, increasingly frequent contact and an ever growing knowledge
about the other and about the others artistic production.
Of particular interest to the mission of this working group is the fact
that the building of collections was only part of the endeavour but that in
many cases the objects imported at huge cost and logistic effort were
meant to be displayed in surroundings reminiscent of their original habitat,
even though their exact original context may have been open to debate and
their final exhibition surroundings may have been unrecognisable to
anyone from their former home. Western collectors built Chinese cabinets
for their exotic treasures, often complemented by depictions of Oriental
tea parties, as is well known. Less familiar is perhaps the fact that from the
seventeenth century onwards Chinese emperors displayed their European
collectibles in palaces built for them for this purpose in Western
architectural style or that Jesuit missionaries played an important role as
artists, architects, and cultural intermediaries at these foreign courts as was
suggested in the winter of 2005-2006 at the wonderful exhibition China:
The Three Emperors, 1662-1795 at the Royal Academy in London.
Collecting and Display are the keywords in the name of the working
group founded by three scholars in 2004 (www.collectinganddisplay.com).
The group has been running a research seminar at the Institute of
Historical Research, University of London since 2005 and in Florence
from 2008 to 2012. Collecting & Display have organised summer
conferences in London, Ottobeuren and Florence since 2006. We would
like to present, with this book, the fourth volume of proceedings of these
conferences and hope that it will be followed by many more tomes
dedicated to different aspects of collecting and display.
Our first conference took place in July 2006 at the Institute of
Historical Research and discussed the connection between collecting and
dynastic ambition (CSP 2009). This was followed a year later by the
xvii
conference on collecting and the princely apartment the proceedings of

which have since been published by CSP (2011). Female Collectors were
the focus of the conference the essays of which were published in 2012
under the title of Women Patrons & Collectors. For 2013 the organisers
have prepared conferences on the reception of the Italian Trecento in the
nineteenth century (March and November 2013) and on collections of
naturalia and artificialia (May 2013) in collaboration with institutions in
the UK, Italy and Germany.
London and Ottobeuren, March 2013
INTRODUCTION
ARTHUR MACGREGOR
The appeal of the exotic has proved an enduring factor in what now
amounts to half a millennium of collecting history in Western Europe,
notwithstanding the continually evolving concepts of what might be
comprehended under such a heading. Interests waxed and waned, as
extraordinarily rare and precious diplomatic gifts gave way to regularised
imports on an industrial scale, as attitudes to remote peoples were
modified in an increasingly assertive European population by considerations
of commercial exploitation and conquest, and as developing strategies for
comprehending and classifying the natural world gave rise to a sense that
there was nothing in Creation that could not be similarly categorised and
understood. In parallel with these developments, considerations of
connoisseurship came to replace (or at least to overlay) earlier concepts
that equated ownership with power and dominion, resulting in further
fluctuations in estimation of the rich and strange. Extreme age, virtuosity
of workmanship, historical association or even quasi-magical properties
could none the less all be trumped on occasion by the power of the exotic.
At first, comparatively few individuals had their understanding of the
world illuminated by personal experience abroad, or indeed by encounters
with foreigners at home: most gained their knowledge from the travel
writings of others, but physical encounters in the cabinet of curiositiesor
indeed in the menagerie or the botanical gardenprovided the majority
with an introduction to the possibilities of the world beyond their own
threshold. Even today, the primary role played by physical collections in
providing the populace at large with some experience of the world beyond
their immediate horizons tends to remain underestimated by historians
wedded to the primacy of the written word:1 the perspectives offered by
1 In a thoughtful essay in which the concepts of presentation versus representation
are compared and contrasted, Peter Mason (1994a, 1) proposes that the primary
status of [museum] objects as partaking of reality raised them above the secondary
status of representations, which were always one degree removed from reality.
xx
Introduction
the essays in this volume provide a powerful corrective to this narrow view
of history, with their presentation of multiple alternative perspectives.
The means by which exotica reached the collectors cabinets of Europe
were many and they varied according to the means of the owner and
prevailing relations with the country of origin. The agencies responsible
for their introduction were equally miscellaneous: diplomatic gifts
accounted for many of the earliest of them, with ambassadors relaying to
the court perhaps rich textiles to be incorporated into clothing and
furnishings, horses to enrich the bloodline of the royal stables and items of
precious metal, ivory or hardstone which gradually emerged from the
protective obscurity of the treasury to take their place on view in the
cabinet. We are reminded below that specimens from the natural world
could be no less prized than exotic man-made objects: Lisa Skoghs
highlighting of the extreme rarity value attributed at Hedwig Eleonoras
court to melons, grown against the climatic odds in the Swedish court,
briefly prized for their all-too-transient singularity, and recorded for
posterity by the court paintersreminds us that beyond the artificially
constructed interest group considered here there was perhaps an even
greater community for whom the natural world was of primary interest.
Voyages of exploration continued to enrich the cabinets of Europe over
many centuries, from the period of early contacts by the Portuguese and
Spanish in the Americas, and the Portuguese again in West Africa and in
the Indian Ocean in the early 1500s. Furthermore, East and West is
merely shorthand for a more universal compass: Lisa Skogh again reminds
us of early interest in the far north, particularly amongst the Scandinavians
who naturally looked in that direction, while the great eighteenth- and
early nineteenth-century voyages under heroic figures such as Cook,
Bougainville and Humboldt brought a fitting climax to the Age of
Exploration and produced undreamed-of rarities from the deep south.
Dynastic relationships within Europe also had an impact on the distribution
of material gained in the course of colonial expansion, as when Portugal
fell under Habsburg rule in 1580, providing the means for dispersal of
material throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond to princely
cousins in Munich and Florence. And, of course, internal warfare resulted
in further redistribution in more peremptory fashion, as when the imperial
collection in Prague was comprehensively pillaged by Swedish troops in
1648 during the Thirty Years War, or when Napoleon Bonaparte set about
creating a new Rome in Paris by dint of relocating there the most desirable
masterpieces from every state and city that fell to his armies.
Missionary activity proved equally fruitful for the collector, from the
early foothold gained by the Jesuits in China and Japan, to the Lutheran
xxi
scholars sent by August Hermann Franckes orphanage in Halle to

proselytise on the Malabar coast in the late 1600s (and whose gifts to their
mother house survive today), to the Moravian Herrenhutters of the
nineteenth century who contributed so usefully to early ethnographic
interest in Germany. Incidentally, we hear much less of reciprocal Western
influence on donor societies, although the fully-fledged cabinet of curiosities
established by King Serfoji II of Tanjore (d. 1832) under the influence of
Pietist missionaries in present-day Tamil Nadu forms a notable exception.2
Commerce rather than religion brought many more Europeans into
contact with remote societies, most strikingly, perhaps, in the form of the
Dutch East India Companys trading stations established at Batavia and in
Japan. In time sizeable populations of Europeans settled in the Asian ports,
more widely in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and so overwhelmingly
in Australia and North America as to all but eclipse the native populations.
This not only brought unprecedented quantities of artefacts to Europe but
resulted in the early establishment by colonists of new museums in those
same countries, often with programmes aimed at registering their separate
identities in a manner paralleling the role played by museums of nationalist
character in the emerging nation-states of continental Europe. In such
institutions the exotic (in European terms) could begin to serve in formulating
these specific identities, instead of merely representing otherness.
Military adventures abroad brought trophies of war over many
centuries, from the Trkenbeute that featured in many of the early
collections of central and Western Europe, salvaged from the field of
battle in the prolonged struggle against Ottoman expansionism, to the First
Nations material that found its way into circulation via isolated forts and
trading stations in the northern and western regions of Canada, to the rich
haul of loot from the sack of Yuanmingyuan during the Second Opium
War. By no means all of this material was gathered with a great deal of
discrimination, although a recent paper by Katrina Hill has demonstrated
that certain soldiers, at least, achieved a surprising degree of sophistication
in their acquisition strategies, both on the field and in the market-place.3
Antique shops, art dealers and auction houses also came to play an
important part in the supply of goods to the collector by the nineteenth
century, all by now having a considerable history behind them.4
The primary role of collections in allowing structures to evolve
through the comparison of series of specimens, the analysis of their
several relationships, the elaboration of taxonomies and the naming of
2 Peterson 1999.
3 Hill 2012.
4 For a review see Warren and Turpin 2008.
xxii
Introduction
types is now taken for granted.5 Natural historians were undoubtedly at the
forefront in developing this movement, but for those with other interests
the possibilities took longer to dawn. A series of interesting developments
instituted in the electoral galleries at Dresden and in the imperial
collection at Vienna in the second half of the eighteenth century resulted in
the first tentative attempts to classify works of art by schools: by
presenting collections aimed at instruction rather than casual
satisfaction, the curators attempted not to overthrow earlier forms of
appreciation but to systematise them, so that contemplation and comparison
[...] will make of [the visitor] a connoisseur of art.6 This declared
ambition serves to remind us that systematics and connoisseurship, far
from being mutually incompatible, can indeed be mutually reinforcing,
although the former is especially reliant on firm documentation: what
prevented the wider application of these principles before the nineteenth
century to the appreciation of Chinese ceramics, ethnographic material
from around the world or the interpretation of flints was not so much a
failure to appreciate the potential rewards of such an approach as the
absence of secure data on crucial matters such as provenance. Only with
the emergence of appropriate techniques of collection and notation in the
field could the museum display begin to aspire to the function of a gauge
by which to measure changing stages of civilisation: Giambattista Vicos
phrase,7 perhaps over-optimistic in its expectations by todays standards,
none the less crystallises the goal of the collections long journey from
exoticism to understanding.
Uncharted Territories
The seeming lack of abilityor lack of ambitionon the part of early
collectors to distinguish very closely between the products of one culture
(or even one continent) and another is well known: the fact that the single
term Indian could be applied in the sixteenth and seventeenth century to
items from anywhere from Japan to South Africa to South America
eloquently epitomises this indifference or inability. Clearly progress was
made with the passage of time: by the eighteenth century the promiscuous
use of such a term would already have seemed bizarre and by the time the
rudiments of the discipline of ethnography were being constructed in the
5 See, for example, MacGregor 2007, chapter IV for an overview of the evolution
of this role from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.
6 Meijers 1995; summarised in MacGregor 2007, 114-8.
7 See chapter three of the present volume, 55.
xxiii
nineteenth century it would have been totally unacceptable.

From the earliest periods of contact, the trajectory followed by each
individual region differed in its course from that of its neighbours, so that
it may be useful to glance briefly at the experience of each of these
Indias in turn. Rather than making any attempt at comprehensiveness,
the following notes highlight just a few of the differing experiences
encountered in the process of bringing East and West to a European (and
especially English) audience.
China and Japan

The means by which China and Japan began to impinge on Western
consciousness have been particularly closely studied, not least because
(from the European point of view) these encounters took place entirely
within the period of our recorded history. Trade with China was at first
carried on through the emporium of Malacca, but with the establishment
of the Portuguese trading station on Macao in 1557 opportunities
expanded for wealthy (and generally aristocratic) Europeans of other
nations to access Chinese goods that in former times had arrived only
intermittently as diplomatic gifts. Many early pieces received treatment
that today would be looked at askance, being invested with European
mounts in precious metal that for contemporaries celebrated their rarity
rather than compromising it: a blue-and-white bowl now in Bologna, for
example, bears silver mounts recording its presentation by John III of
Portugal to the Papal Legate.8 Much of the appeal of porcelain at this
period came not only from its sophisticated workmanship but from the
still-indefinable nature of its raw material: there was much debate among
connoisseurs as to whether it might be fashioned from crushed sea-shells,
egg-shells, or even gem-stones.9
From 1600 the East India Company began contributing to the flow of
goods from China to London, soon to be overtaken by the Dutch East
India Company (VOC), established two years later, which supplied not
only Holland but much of the rest of Europe through its Amsterdam
headquarters. By 1608 the Dutch can be found placing orders for over
100,000 pieces from Chinese merchantsmore, incidentally, than the
8 Ayers 1985, 262. Note also a Celadon bowl with enamelled mounts bearing the
arms of Count Philip of Katzenelnbogen which is to be dated before 1453,
demonstrating the lengthy tradition lying behind this practice: see no. 4.3 in
Jackson and Jaffer 2004, 47.
9 See, for example, Pierson 2007.
xxiv
Introduction
market was able to provide on that occasion.10 Portugal and Spain also
contributedalbeit unwillinglyto this flood of material as the cargoes of
captured ships were regularly auctioned off to the highest bidder: that of
the Santa Catarina, for example, sold to buyers from all over Europe in
1604, is said to have included another 100,000 pieces of Chinese
porcelain. Some aristocratic collections, such as that at Wardour Castle
(Wiltshire), were sufficiently extensive to merit display in a separate room
by the opening years of the seventeenth century. Perhaps the most
influential example of its day was provided by the Countess of Arundels
pranketing room, established at Tart Hall on the fringes of St Jamess in
the 1630s, all four walls of which were densely populated with porcelain,
combined in places with glass and brassware; sadly, it would not survive
the Civil War.11 Collectors of more modest stature might show off their
possessions by standing them on shelves or cabinets or by mounting them
above the fireplace.
By the turn of the eighteenth century, the example set by Queen Mary
at Hampton Court and Kensington Palace provided a new lead for
fashionable English households in which porcelain came increasingly to
perform a more general decorative function.12 Significantly, Marys earlier
residences at The Hague and at Honsselarsdijk had both included dedicated
porcelain rooms, providing models for the innovations she popularised in
England. Displays were by no means limited to such specialised chambers,
however, and porcelain began to proliferate throughout the public rooms
of the household: the heavy mouldings of cornices and overdoors of the
period lent themselves to display spaces, while the plaster mouldings over
mantelpieces and on walls now characteristically sprouted brackets and
consoles to maximise the display area. Sets or garnitures of five or seven
matched vessels were sold with this fashion specifically in mind, while
more miscellaneous pots were piled up wherever they could find a space: a
satirical complaint published in the Spectator in 1712, purporting to come
from a city gentleman, has him grumbling that his wife has planted every
corner with such Heaps of China that I am obliged to move about my own
house with the greatest Caution and Circumspection.13 Specially designed
10 Impey 1986, 38.
11 Claxton 2010.
12 Anna Somers Cocks, who provides a vivid survey of this movement (1989),
notes that in the best houses Delftware was the only European product to compete
in this form of display with oriental porcelain, and even then it was mostly limited
to the houses of those with royal connections or with diplomatic links with The
Hague. The lesser gentry followed suit with English delftware.
13 Quoted in Somers Cocks 1989, 200-1.
xxv
china cabinets began to make their appearance in the 1750s, but within a
couple of generations the craze had run its course and women (who had
indeed played the leading role in forming ceramic collections in the late
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) began to consign their china instead
to the site of the latest feminine crazethe dairy.
Constance Bienaim provides below a valuable French perspective on
these early European contacts, in which a more marked influence can be
detected amongst French artists, even by the late seventeenth century, in
response to the stylistic exuberance of the Empire of Extravagance. For
them, she suggests, Chinese exoticism provided sufficient reward in its
own terms, and without generating a need to comprehend or to define it in
terms of the society or even the country which produced ita warning
against the assumption that progress need necessarily be defined in terms
of present-day anthropological understanding: the interests of the art
lovers, as she calls them, were by no means always identical with those
of the scholars.
The range of Chinese material reaching collectors meanwhile expanded
to include ivories, textiles, writing equipment, seals and other exotica. A
temporary falling-off in enthusiasm for things Chinese can be detected in
the second half of the eighteenth century with the ending of direct trade by
the East India Company, although again Bienaim draws a distinction
between the general trend and a continuing engagement on the part of the
more scholarly community.14 After this period, it was principally
intermittent military activity that stirred interest and promoted opportunity
within the collectors world, boosted by the sacking of the Summer Palace
during the Second Opium War and maintained thereafter by the material
recovered by numerous Western intelligence-gathering missions to
western China in particular. There was still much to be learned, however:
Silvia Davoli describes below how Enrico Cernuschis eyes were opened
to the range and beauty of Chinese bronzes only when he travelled there
himself in 1872 and how he attempted to apply a system to its stylistic
development. Wider familiarity with Chinese graphic art came even later,
so that the background to the acquisition by the British Museum of its first
major collection of Chinese paintings brought from China itself in 1910,
as described in Michelle Ying-Ling Huangs chapter, remained one of
confusion and uncertainty over authenticity and quality. That acquisition
was itself to galvanise the first generation of specialists in Chinese
drawing and painting (notably in the person of Laurence Binyon) to reach
14 It is of interest that Henri-Lonard Bertin, of whom Bienaim writes, continued
to gain particular benefit in the second half of the eighteenth century from contacts
within the Jesuit community (140) then established at the Chinese court.
xxvi
Introduction
new levels of connoisseurship.

Japan began to contribute to European collecting from as early as
1544, when trading relations were established by the Portuguese. Two
principal phases of contact are distinguished thereafter: in the first of
these, up to 1639, the Portuguese and Chinese dominated trade (with the
English and Dutch playing a lesser role); during the second phase, from
1639 to 1854, the Dutch and Chinese shared a monopoly of trade, with the
Dutch trading-station on the island of Dejima at Nagasaki playing a role of
particular importance after its foundation in 1641.15 Porcelain production
was established in Japan from about 1600, so that when Chinese supplies
were temporarily interrupted by the civil unrest that followed the fall of
the Ming dynasty in the 1640s, Japan was able to fulfil European needs:
the first sales are recorded in 1661.16 Little or no distinction between the
products of these two sources was initially made by European consumers.
As with China, the story of collecting Japanese material is largely one
of ceramics, with other materials such as lacquer playing a lesser part. The
names of two German surgeons who served with the VOC on Dejima each
stand out as being innovators in their own age. Engelbert Kaempfer (d.
1716) famously gathered documentary and other materials (under the most
adverse conditions) which would form the basis of his History of Japan,
published in 1727 by Sir Hans Sloane, who took pains to acquire both the
collection and the manuscript. Philipp Franz von Siebold (d. 1866) was
similarly acquisitive until he was banished in 1829 on suspicion of spying;
his vast collections of books, pictures, ethnography and dried plants also
formed the basis of a publication, his nine-volume Nippon, a tremendous
work of reference, published 1832-58.17 Later travellers like Thodore
Duret began to appreciate the potential impact that Japans graphic arts in
particular could make on European artists: Silvia Davoli tells how Duret
saw in Japanese art and aesthetics a template for the renovation of French
art, and for a time Japanese influence did indeed play a leading role in
influencing French style in particular.
15 The English opened a factory in Japan in 1613 but closed it as unprofitable a

decade later: see Impey 1985, 268.
16 Impey 1986, 38.
17 On returning to Japan in 1859-62, von Siebold formed a second collection of
ethnographic material, now in the Staatliches Museum fr Vlkerkunde in Munich.
(His earlier collections are now mostly in a variety of specialist museums in
Leiden).
xxvii
India and the Islamic World

Circling Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, Vasco da Gama famously
reached Calicut in 1498, opening up the possibilities for a direct longdistance maritime trade between Europe and India, although another
century would pass before commercial interchange began to gather pace.
In 1618 the Emperor Jehangir signed a treaty with the recently formed
East India Company that gave the English the right to trade at any port in
Mughal India, a concession which the Company was quick to exploit and
to develop. From this point, the trickle of goods, semi-precious stones and
curios that had made their way to Europe (mostly via the Turks) was
dwarfed by the imports generated by one of the most successful trading
companies ever formed. The history of the Company embodies a complex
mix of enlightenment and ruthlessness: much of the advance in European
scholarship and understanding of Indian culture and of the countrys
economic potential can be attributed to the officials and administrators
who trod a path between the two societies and who contributed in large
measure to the familiarisation of the British and their European neighbours
with Indian material culture. The Companys surveyors, according to Ray
Desmond, were expected to record any archaeological sites and ancient
buildings they encountered, while its surgeons were encouraged to study
the local fauna and flora and were put in charge of botanical gardens
activities that could have been designed to promote a sympathetic
response to collectors at home.18 By 1784 the British residents in Calcutta
had formed the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and in time moves were
instituted by certain officers of the East India Company aimed at
establishing under their parent house in London a suitable repository for,
in the first instance, books on all aspects of Indian culture (especially
languages) and later, by 1799, for setting up a museum at India House
which would hold all relevant productions of nature and art and which
would be useful, as well as ornamental. The museum, which finally
came into being in 1801, formed a (possibly unique?) instance of a great
national company being tempted into the museum field and for a time it
fulfilled every expectation of it, although the collections would be
dispersed in 1879, five years after the Company itself was dissolved.
Rare items from the Islamic worldperhaps especially textiles
periodically made an appearance in Europe in the centuries preceding
the Renaissance interest in forming collections, generally arriving as
diplomatic gifts: perhaps the most famous such occasion would be the
18 Desmond 1982, 4.
xxviii
Introduction
mutual exchange of missions between Shah Abbas and Rudolf II at the

opening of the seventeenth century.19 In a recent survey of such material in
the Habsburg collections, Barbara Karl has reminded us pertinently that
Europe remained at this time economically underdeveloped and culturally
peripheral, able to offer little in return but raw materials to the powerful
Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals or their eastern neighbours.20 The muchcontested nature of the frontier between the Habsburg empire and the
Ottomans is reflected in the impressive armours that came to be assembled
in the Rstkammer at Schloss Ambras (including a representation of the
arch-enemy of the Holy Roman Empire, Suleiman the Magnificent), and
in the neighbouring Trkenkammerl, which was decorated with trophies of
Ottoman arms.21 The repulse of the Siege of Vienna in 1683 not only
ensured the survival of a large part of Christendom but brought further
enormous quantities of booty, some of which would be arranged to
celebrate the victory in the imperial armoury in Vienna. The character of
this and other collections reflects the belligerent nature of a great deal of
contact at this period, with arms and armour predominating.
Beyond the circles of the imperial court, items from the Islamic world
made an occasional appearance in lesser collections, in some of which
Iznik pottery, for example, might be given the same treatment
administered to Chinese porcelain, with metal mounts being added to
vessels to emphasise their rarity. Otherwise weaponry and defensive
armour were again sought after, together with personal ornaments in
metalwork. Religious scruples about the hoarding of personal wealth made
silver plate less common in the Islamic world, although Persia continued
to produce it in some quantities.
Africa
The Mediterranean littoral of the African continent, being comparatively
accessible (however indirectly) to Europeans, had functioned as an almost
continuous source of rarities throughout the history of collecting, primarily
in the form of Egyptian antiquities supplied through the port of
Alexandria: few Europeans penetrated south of Cairo up to the end of the
seventeenth century and it was only with the headlong penetration of
Napoleons commissioners as far south as Nubia that the interior was to
19 Lisa Skogh mentions (129) a number of possible survivors from the gifts
exchanged on this occasion, now in Stockholm.
20 Karl 2011.
21 For the presence in the electoral collections at Dresden of Near-Eastern pieces
in the Rstkammer, see below, 133.
xxix
some degree opened up. Further west, such contact as there was with the
Moorish population resulted in exchanges of material more contemporary
in origin and more ethnographic in character (though Barbary horses
remained their most coveted export). The sub-Saharan region had already
contributed copiously to the riches of the Roman empire, mostly in the
form of slaves and raw materials traded through the emporia on the
Mediterranean coast, and the continuing flow of materials such as ivory
during the medieval and Renaissance periods demonstrates that longdistance trade continued to some degree.
To the south it was the advances made by the Portuguese into the Gulf
of Guinea in the middle decades of the fifteenth century that opened direct
contact; by 1486 they had reached the Cape of Good Hope. It is perhaps
not surprising that, in particular, the highly competent ivory carvings
produced by craftsmen in and around Benin, Sierra Leone and the Congo
should have found immediate favour with collectors, but what is striking is
the rapidity with which the preferences of the European market were
transmitted to and readily absorbed by those who had worked hitherto in
an undiluted traditional style. Amongst the very earliest known imports,
these tastes are already evident in ivories of what is now termed the AfroPortuguese school, the name acknowledging the twin streams of influence
which these items exhibit. Oliphants, salt-cellars, spoons and other pieces
display an easy mix of forms and styles, with iconographical programmes
that combine, for example, representations of African fauna together with
shields of arms alluding to their ultimate ownersthe arms of Castile,
Aragon and Portugal in the case of an oliphant presented to Ferdinand and
Isabella on the occasion of the marriage of their daughter to Manuel I of
Portugal,22 and elsewhere the arms of the Medici indicate an ultimate
destination in the Florentine collections. Just as prints and drawings might
serve as guides to European tastes for Japanese craftsmen producing
export wares, so European imagery was transmitted to the West African
ivory carvers by the early years of the sixteenth century.23 With the
exception of highly admired textiles, mats and baskets, other materials
from this area were less favoured in Europe (highly stylised idols
perhaps least of all), although smaller numbers of musical instruments and
weapons featured in a number of early Kunstkammern long before a
consciously ethnographic interest developed in the nineteenth century.24
22 Vogel 1988, 13.
23 For an account of an ivory trumpet from Sierra Leone, carved with the image of
an Indian elephantevidently one presented to Pope Leo X in 1512 and related
here to a drawing by Raphael or his school; see Bassani 1998.
24 See the chapter Collections and Collectors: Works of Art and Artefacts from
xxx
Introduction
Something of a frenzy of collecting followed the wave of colonial and

commercial expansion ushered in by the so-called Congo Conference in
Berlin in 1885, but only in the early 1900s did the vitality of African art
begin to be appreciated by artists of the European avant-garde, who
ultimately introduced it to a wider public by now less fettered by prejudice.
The Americas
From the moment of the arrival in Europe of Hernn Cortss first cargo of
curiosities in 1519, rarities from the Americas were amongst those most
prized by European collectorsnot only those in intrinsically precious
materials but also weapons, clothing and ornaments. Within a generation
there are signs that these materials, which initially represented the ultimate
in exotica, had already begun to be viewed in more rational comparative
terms by privileged collectors like the Medici, who can be found in midcentury, arranging clubs and feather cloaks, for example, with the weapons
and clothing of European and other cultures. By the turn of the century it
was no longer necessary to belong to the most privileged ranks of church
and state in order to share in this bounty: one could simply call in at
establishments like Lisbons Shop of the Indies and walk away with
wonderful things.
Although it has only recently been recognised that Corts himself
played a part in manipulating native production of ornaments and other
goods specifically for export to Europe,25 it has long been known that the
craftsmen who produced the feather cloaks, shields and other items that
were amongst the items from Central and South America most soughtafter by European collectors during the early contact period, quickly
modified their output in a manner recalling the experience of the AfroPortuguese ivory industry mentioned above: soon the glorious garments
that had been integral to the enactment of indigenous ritual were displaced
by pictures executed in a mosaic of featherwork featuring European
heraldry and iconographyparticularly that of the Crucifixion, the Virgin,
and the whole panoply of saints of the Christian church introduced by the
Spaniards. Bishops mitres of featherwork became equally sought-after in
the higher echelons of the Catholic hierarchy. In her chapter below,
Corinna Gallori aptly demonstrates the multiple layers of symbolism
embodied in the Churchs pre-emption of this art-form, whose products
Black Africa in European Collections from the Age of Discovery to the End of the
Eighteenth Century, in Bassani 2000, xxi-xxxvii.
25 Russo 2011, 238-40.
xxxi
show every sign of having been used devotionally or worn during the
administration of the sacrament before some of them, at least, were
secularised again to become collectors pieces. The New World itself was
frequently represented pictorially by feather-clad figures, so that possession
of featherwork in itself implied a degree of dominion (and indeed the fact
that its distribution was initially so closely controlled by the Spanish
carried further implications of privileged access); and perhaps most potently
of all, in the replacement of their original iconography with specifically
Christian themes, the feather mosaics formed visual testaments of the
Spiritual Conquest by the Church of Central and South America. All of
these formed powerful stimuli to the interest in featherwork during the
1500s, but by the end of the seventeenth century most of these resonances
had been lost and with them much of the rarity value of the feather
mosaics.26
Further north early exploration and settlement of the Americas
followed a different course, with the British and French contending for
influence and dominion from the Carolinas to Quebec. Between 1534 and
1542 Jacques Cartier penetrated and mapped much of the St Lawrence
seaway, taking care on his return to present the cabinet du roi with items
of clothing. In England museums from that of the Tradescants onwards
similarly registered something of the character of the indigenous Americans
with weapons, clothing, ornaments, model canoes, etc. The role of the
Hudsons Bay Company in enriching the Repository of the Royal
Society with natural history specimens would later be acknowledged, but
the bulk of the man-made curiosities reaching European museums from
North America remained primarily of an ethnographic character and as
such began to be appropriately valued only in the nineteenth century.
The Pacific
The south Pacific area remained little explored until the later eighteenth
century, at which time it was the discoveries made in the field of natural
history that attracted major interest amongst collectors. Considerable
amounts of man-made material arrived in Europe almost as by-products of
the great voyages of exploration: those from Captain Cooks three voyages
in particular have been documented by Adrienne Kaeppler, who draws a
26 One imagines that the beginnings of this long slide to the status of a mere
popular craft can be traced to the founding of the first school of the arts in Mexico
by the Franciscan Pedro de Gante in the 1520s.
xxxii
Introduction
number of conclusions concerning them.27 Much of the official haul of

curiosities was presented by Cook to his sponsorsnotably the Earl of
Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, and to George IIIand ultimately
made its way directly or indirectly into museum collections, particularly
those of the British Museum, Sir Ashton Levers Holophusicon, and
William Hunters museum, with comparatively little ending up immediately
on the market, where in any case interest in ethnographical objects
remained low.28 Items brought by other senior figures on the various
voyages, especially Captain Furneaux and the naturalists on the second
voyage, Johan Reinhold Forster and his son George (of whom Kaeppler
says that one might consider them the first Pacific ethnographers),
followed similar trajectories, the Forsters presenting the bulk of their
collection to the Ashmolean Museum. Most of the material that did find its
way directly on to the market originated with other crew members, and
certainly there seems to have been considerably more of it in circulation
directly linked to Cooks name than could ever have been justified.
Even those museums which benefited from this early bounty were ill
equipped to present it to the public in a meaningful way. By 1775, in
which year the Admiralty passed on the main part of the material from the
first Cook voyage so that it could be displayed as a monument of these
national exertions of British munificence and industry, the British
Museum had, in Sir David Wilsons words, cobbled together an
Otaheite (South Sea) Room in which some part of it could be displayed,
but despite the intensity of public interest it remained for some time
labelled with no more than details of the donor.29
From the evidence emanating from each of these spheres of contact, it
seems that the reception of the exotic followed a rather variable path over
the centuries according to whether it found favour with the increasingly
important body of European connoisseur collectors. Chinese and Japanese
ceramics, for example, found a ready appreciation that saw them emerge
from the curiosity cabinet to form an ostentatious badge of refinement and
privilege in the most public apartments of the household. No other
category of material proved so popular (even silks and lacquerware) until
the rise of interest in graphic arts in the nineteenth century, and indeed the
generality of oriental material culture had to wait for a similar upsurge of
interest from the new discipline of ethnography. Iznik ware from Turkey
27 Kaeppler 1978.
28 In time, however, a considerable amount of Cook material, both ethnographic
and natural history, did find its way on to the commercial market or was simply
lost from sight in poorly administered museum collections.
29 Wilson 2002, 43.
xxxiii
was perhaps the only competitor in the field (though much more restricted
in its popularity), but similarly the real discovery of the Middle East would
again have to await a receptive nineteenth-century audience. A limited
range of African materialessentially little more than ivory carvings
made a great deal of impact in the absence of any developed sense of
appreciation, and virtually the whole of the output of the Americaswith
the exception of gold and precious stonesagain seems to have
experienced a period of initial interest in terms of its curiosity to be
followed by a long lull before the emergence of an educated community of
ethnologists able to appreciate it in its own terms.
Deep Time
The concept of the exotic is further extended in several contributions to
the present volume to include material whose origins are remote in
chronological rather than geographical terms. Although it has become
customary to view items of this kind under the separate rubric of
antiquities, their inclusion here seems appropriate since early collectors, at
least, had no more understanding of deep time than of remote space. Even
when they came to be recorded in cultural terms in museum catalogues, a
lengthy period ensued in which archaeological objects continued to
function in a less structured way within displays: at the British Museum,
for instance, it was only with the arrival of the first tranche of Sir William
Hamiltons collection of vases from Magna Graecia in 1772 that the
possibility even existed of displaying an extensive body of such material
in a manner that would allow it to be compared and analysed in its own
terms, rather than appearing as incidental punctuation marks within a more
heterogeneous body of exhibits.30
We are familiar with a number of alternative roles played by
antiquities in revealing aspects of past collecting activities, but the paper
presented here by Allison Karmel Thomason is astonishing in the evidence
it presents from the Assyrian empire of the early first millennium BC. Her
reading of Akkadian tablets presents a picture not only of hoarding by
Assyrian rulers but of their taking to themselves responsibility for the
naming of animals, plants and other specimens encountered in the course
30 Hamilton himself had already begun to interrogate the collection, formed while
he was ambassador in Naples, in just such a way: he was amongst the first of his
generation of antiquaries to suggest that the vases were to be associated with the
Greek colonists in that area and not with the Etruscans, as previously held. See, for
example, the essay by Ian Jenkins, Contemporary minds: Sir William Hamiltons
affair with antiquity, in Jenkins and Sloan 1996, 40-64.
xxxiv
Introduction
of conquest and trade. The establishment of parks and menageries where

living species of plants and animals could be displayed, projecting
eloquent messages of the rulers power and prestige, forms an extraordinarily
early counterpart to the activities of Rudolf II at Prague and of the French
monarchs at Versailles during the earlier centuries of collecting history.
In an assessment of the Tribuna of the Uffizi (below), the intriguing
possibility is raised that the entire form of the Tribuna may itself be an
evocation of a literary antiquity in the form of the De Architectura of
Vitruvius: using the octagonal Tower of the Winds in Athens as his
starting point, Vitruvius had asserted that the eight-sided form was the
perfect shape for an ideal city and, by extension, Adriana Turpin proposes
here that the Tribuna itselfand the octagonal tempietto which it housed
at its centrecarry coded allusions to the order and unity imposed on the
whole city of Florence by the good governance of the Medici themselves.
These hitherto unsuspected possibilities are added to other layers of
meaning carried by the name applied to the structure itself, the role of the
tribune having been central to the functioning of the Roman Senate.
By the 1700s progress had been made in appreciation of the various
ways in which antiquitiesespecially those of the classical periodmight
be made to contribute new knowledge to a field that hitherto had been
understood primarily from literary sources. Bernard de Montfaucons
LAntiquit expliqu (1722-4) and the Receuil dantiquits (1761-7) of the
Comte de Caylus had formed important milestones in the diffusion of
knowledge of (especially portable) antiquities, while Stuart and Revetts
Antiquities of Athens, produced in 1762-1816 for the Society of Dilettanti,
brought alive the architectural monuments of Greece for those who had
never visited that country. In the English-speaking world the arrival in
London of the marbles removed by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon is
generally taken to open the next chapter in the Western European
discovery of classical Greece, but Patrick Michels chapter introduces a
worthy contender for Elgins primacy in the person of Comte de ChoiseulGouffier (1752-1817), whose activities in assembling a huge collection of
Greek marbles are scarcely less remarkable (or less controversial) than
those of his British counterpart. Both served their countries as
ambassadors to the Sublime Port and both began their engagement with
antiquity with ambitions to survey the monuments on the ground rather
than annexing them to their respective countries. Lord Elgins team of
surveyors, artists and plaster-cast makers sounds rather prosaic alongside
Choiseul-Gouffiers entourage of (amongst others) painters, an astronomer,
a poet and a philologist, but the last-named reveals the missions primary
interest in epigraphic monuments. Initially aiming to have all the finest
xxxv
architectural monuments from Greece and Asia Minor drawn or cast either
in their actual state or to restore them to their original integrity, ChoiseulGouffier is said to have cited the moral necessity not to alter the integrity
of the monument or to deprive the people of their right to keep their
heritage, but in timeagain like Elginhis attentions turned to the
removal of original monuments. Even some of the same justifications were
produced for his subsequent actionsthat the monuments were at risk if
left alone, that the local populace would actively destroy them, and so on.
So it was that between 1787 and 1791 seventeen ship-loads comprising
marbles as well as casts found their way to Marseilles (where they would
promptly be impounded until the end of the Revolution) while others
remained in Constantinople until the restoration of the French monarchy
brought about the appropriate conditions for the building of the longdreamed-of mansion (completed in 1812) that would house them in Paris.
The descriptions leave little doubt as to its magnificence: the faades are
reminiscent of some monuments in Athens and Palmyra; its interior is
decorated with the best taste, and will properly house many objects
acquired and conserved with great difficulties. It would indeed have
become one of the monuments of its own age, but the dispersal of the
collection after Choiseul-Gouffiers death leaves us with the possibility of
no more than a verbal reconstructionachieved in admirable form in
Michels essayand the monuments scattered again into several museums.
But the essays presented here must be left to speak for themselves:
each produces original ideas and fresh evidence to be added to the stream
of new knowledge on the history of collections, a subject that now forms
an established landmark in the field of cultural studies. When the
formation of cabinets first became fashionable, East and West were little
more than ciphers for the exotica sought after by those intent on
establishing for their collections a sense of universal comprehensiveness.
If the boundaries were so imprecisely defined that a single term
Indianmight comprehend virtually all the exotica collected, it scarcely
compromised the already hazy world view offered by these earliest
museums. None the less, it was here too (in addition to research
undertaken in the field) that understanding gradually emerged, resulting in
the progressive redeployment of some exhibits to explore broad themes
such as strife and dominion, technological and artistic skill, or economic
potential; ultimately, by the nineteenth century the independent characters
and interrelationships of the donor societies themselves became legitimate
subjects for investigation, giving rise to entirely new areas of curatorial
expertise and establishing something of the diversity of character and
expertise that continues to characterise the museums of our own day.
CHAPTER ABSTRACTS
Chapter 1
There have been a great number and variety of analyses of the European
tradition of collecting objects as defined by Pearce (1998), and discussed
by many other scholars too numerous to name, including the organisers of
this conference and their working group, and the contributors to the
Journal of the History of Collections. Many of these studies have explored
the collecting of exoticafrom the cabinets of the Italian world to the
Wunderkammern of the Northern European lite. However, rarely have
traditions involving the collecting of exotica been examined for
civilisations that preceeded the Classical era or for non-Western cultures.
This chapter explores the collecting of exotica in ancient
Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) during the early first millennium BC. In
particular, it will examine the ways in which the kings of the Assyrian
empire collected numerous objects, both inanimate and living, from the
worlds that they had conquered, namely Syria and Egypt to their west, and
imported other exotica from even further afield, such as Arabia and the
Indian sub-continent to their east. The examination of these ancient
Mesopotamian collecting practices will identify an early form of
Occidentalism in which the West (in this case Syria, geographic
Palestine, and Egypt) emerge for the Assyrian kings as places replete with
exotic products, flora and fauna. The ability of the kings of Assyria to
introduce and quite literally name things for the first time to native
Assyrians played a crucial role in the construction of their royal identities
as benevolent acquirers and ideal creators.
Chapter 2
Patrick Michel
Following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor, the marquis of
Nointel, Marie-Gabriel-Florent-Auguste, count of Choiseul-Gouffier
(1752-1817), author of the Picturesque Voyage to Greece, spent the nine
years of his tenure as ambassador to the Ottoman Court, in intense
archaeological activity near the Ottoman port, collecting material for the
history he hoped to write. His collecting took various different but
complementary forms: the designs and reliefs of monuments, the creation
xxxviii
Chapter Abstracts
of casts and the bringing together of original works and marbles, primarily
antique inscriptions. In this variety of composition lay the originality of
the collection.
This collection of archaeological remains quickly gained significance,
thanks to the research of three French vice-consuls, Gasparry in Athens,
Kauffer in Constantinople and Amoreux in Smyrna, to whom must be
added Cousinry, consul in Salonika and the painters Louis-Franois
Cassas and above all, Louis-Franois Sbastien Fauvel. We are thus
discussing primarily a collection united through this documentary
perspective. In this essay, I thus propose to analyse the motives of ChoiseulGouffier, considering the different elements of the collection and in
particular, the destination for his exceptional collection and the vast
archaeological enterprise, which resulted in one of the panels of the
Parthenon frieze arriving in the French National collections.
Chapter 3
Silvia Davoli
Enrico Cernuschi founded the Cernuschi museum at the end of the
nineteenth century. Its collection had been formed by Cernuschi during his
trip to Asia in 1871, accompanied by the art critic Theodore Duret.
Cernuschi did not leave to posterity any written evidence about his
museum. This silence, combined with the interpretative complexity that
arises from his dual nationality and cultural background (Italian and
French), and the many renovations undergone by the museum, has limited
our understanding of the museums original features. Even more
mysterious is the initial presence of a Renaissance art collection inside the
htel-museum, which was dispersed after Cernuschis death. The purpose
of this article is to investigate the process by which Enrico Cernuschis
collections were formed in light of his educational and philosophical
background in Italy, and thereby to present possible new explanations for
his museums design.
Chapter 4
Corinna Tania Gallori
In ancient Mexico feathers were considered precious. They had a relevant
material value for the indigenous populations and were used by wealthy or
powerful individuals as accessories, headdress or ornaments complementing
their fashionable attire, to decorate high-ranking soldiers shields, or to
embellish statues of the gods. After the Conquest and Fall of the Aztec
empire, Mexican objects made of or decorated with feathers quickly
attracted the attention of Spanish Conquistadores and missionary friars
xxxix
sent to convert the newly discovered people. As a result, several feather

artefacts were sent back to Europe, while in Mexico a new application for
featherwork was born: feathery versions of Christian images.
This essay aims to tell the history of Christian featherwork that arrived
in Italy in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. I will start by
canvassing the presence of feather artefacts in important Italian collections
of the time, including that of at least four popes and those in the hands of
the Medici and will try to explore where and in what context these
artefacts were displayed. Finally, I will provide an assessment regarding
the underlying motivations of appreciation and success of such works
based on the analysis of selected contemporary documents by various
authors.
Chapter 5
Adriana Turpin
The Tribuna, created in 1589 by Duke Franceso I de Medici in the Uffizi,
brought together the Medici collections of antique and modern sculptures,
paintings and works of art and displayed them in a site specifically created
for public view. Although Detlef Heikamp extensively described the
Tribuna and its contents, there has been little attempt to place it in the
wider context of Medicean display. This is all the more surprising in view
of the historic importance of the creation of the room as a deliberate space
to show the Medici collections to the visitor, with the works displayed on
shelves and with a combination of paintings and other categories of works
of art.
Recently, scholars have tended to call the Tribuna a kunstkammer in
order to show the universality of meaning that underlies the display. I will
argue, however, that the importance given to exotica differed from those
types of collections and instead concentrated on the skill and ingenuity of
workmanship, in keeping with the view of the Tribuna as a display of
princely treasure. The objects aroused a sense of wonder but there was
little sense of the curious or scientific. The artefacts from the East and
from the New World acted as punctuation marks within a display of
essentially classical forms of art. Equally, the absence of the New World
feather capes and turquoise masks in the Tribuna needs to be considered.
Thus our understanding of the creation and display of the Tribuna can be
helped by the focus on one element, namely the placement of the exotica,
which I will argue contributed to the sense of wonder that the room was
meant to achieve.
xl
Chapter Abstracts
Chapter 6
Lisa Skogh
This essay will focus on different types of exotica originating from the
South, East and North in the collections of Hedwig Eleonora. She was
born a princess of the northern German Duchy of Schleswig-HolsteinGottorf. After her marriage in 1654 to the Swedish king, she quickly
became the head of the royal family during her early and long widowhood;
she also became the culturally, economically and politically most powerful
woman in Sweden. Her family background as part of the scholarly and
culturally sophisticated court in Gottorf has been left largely underresearched. However, through the careful study of her collections in
Sweden and of her concern for the Gottorf collecting traditions, we may
draw conclusions regarding an inherited pattern of collecting traditions
based on the comparisons with her fathers Kunstkammer. The possessions
of Duke Friedrich III (1597-1659), the pretiosa collections of her mother
Maria Elisabeth of Saxony (1610-1684) and the work of the courtier and
scholar Adam Olearius (1603-1671) continued to influence the young
queen of Sweden.
Adam Oleariuss lifelong service for her father included exploratory
trips to Muscovy and Persia. Olearius, famous through his many
publications, was also appointed keeper of the Kunstkammer and in 1666
he published Gottorfische Kunst-Cammer with a special focus on the
collections of naturalia and exotica (the intended second volume on the
artificialia remained unpublished). Through the unusual dedicatio in her
personal copy of the book, Hedwig Eleonoras concern for the preservation
and knowledge of the Kunstkammer as well as her knowledgeable focus
on collecting is documented. Objects traced in the Swedish State
collections not only confirm her ownership and connoisseurship of
artefacts from the regions of Muscovy and Persia, but also her interest in
areas such as present-day Indonesia and Turkey as well as China and
Japan, and in rarities from the north of the Swedish realm.
Chapter 7
Constance Bienam
The presence of objects known to be Chinese in the nineteenth-century
sales catalogues is not surprising if we consider French taste for China in
the eighteenth century. The increasing number of merchant ships from
China docking at Lorient had permitted to those who liked Lachine
objects to amass collections in which porcelains and lacquers competed
for exoticism. Was this wild passion for chinoiserie the sole impetus for
the existence of such important collections? Is it right to consider the
xli
eighteenth century as the cradle of a virtual meeting with the Middle

Kingdomleading to a chimerical knowledge? Minister Henri Bertins
(1720-1792) sales catalogues reveal an unusual traffic of authentic
Chinese objects in contrast to what was traditionally sold in Europe. What
was the aim of this collection, containing objects ranging from musical
instruments to stones or pottery from Beijing? By which means did the
instigator of the famous Mmoires concernant les Chinois form the most
important Chinese graphic art collection of the century, notably made up
of paintings created for the emperor? Deeply interested in achieving a
higher level of knowledge of China in France, Bertin devoted himself to
the study of his collection and, thus, enabled many connoisseurs to create
for themselves authentic Chinese collections. The study of Bertin allows
us to look into the emergence of a new use of exotic collections:
collections would no longer be the result of mere curiosity but eventually
developed into genuine knowledge.
Chapter 8
Michelle Ying-Ling Huang
In the first decade of the twentieth century, public museums in Europe and
America were enthusiastically acquiring works of Japanese and Chinese
art directly from their countries of origin and as a result sent curators to
Japan and China to conduct research into East Asian art. Following the
purchase of an early Chinese hand scroll Admonitions of the Court
Instructress in 1903, the British Museum acquired a large number of Tang
Buddhist paintings, manuscripts, textiles and other objects removed from
the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas near Dunhuang by Sir Marc Aurel
Stein in 1906-8 during his second Central-Asian expedition. Competition
among Western museums encouraged Sir Sidney Colvin, Keeper of Prints
and Drawings, and his assistant, Laurence Binyon, to propose the purchase
of the Olga-Julia Wegener collection of Chinese paintings in 1910 and to
accept a gift of the Arthur Morrison collection of Japanese and Chinese
paintings in 1913, thus enhancing Britains national collection in its rivalry
with Germany and France. This chapter aims to reconstruct historical
details of the acquisition of the two collections and to examine the
historical and aesthetic value of their Chinese paintings. I will also
illuminate Binyons role in instituting the Sub-department of Oriental
Prints and Drawings at the British Museum and map out his social
network with collectors and artists in Britain, Germany and America.
CHAPTER ONE
OCCIDENTALISM IN ANCIENT ASSYRIA
ALLISON KARMEL THOMASON
Ancient Mesopotamia
Research on Mesopotamia, roughly the equivalent of modern Iraq, and on
its royal collections takes us back to a most ancient world.1 This complex
urban civilisation began with the advent of large cities in the valleys of the
southern Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The cities of Mesopotamia were
politically and economically centred around temples and their theocracies
by about 3200 BC. By 2900, the Mesopotamians had developed city-states
governed by local ruling dynasties, and eventually, by about 1800 BC,
these dynasties founded militarily expansive and bureaucratically
centralised empires, such as the Neo-Assyrian empire of 900-600 BC.2 The
Neo-Assyrian empire is the period of time for which historians and
archaeologists have the most information in the form of cuneiform tablets
and well-preserved palaces with their contents fairly intact. The NeoAssyrians held sway over much of the known world in their time, and their
empire eventually stretched from Egypt, through the Levant and eastern
Anatolia, to Iran. The communication networks and provincial organisation
of this Mesopotamian empire laid the foundations for the later Persian and
Classical empires that followed. Other contributions to Western civilisation
offered by the Mesopotamians included scientific ideas such as mathematics,
1 This has long been the focus of my work; see Thomason 2005. I would
especially like to thank Andrea Gldy, Susan Bracken, and Adriana Turpin for
their close reading of this manuscript and constructive suggestions, as well as my
colleagues who attended the Collecting East and West conference in Florence in
2009 for their insights and comments.
2 For a concise summary of the history of Mesopotamia and the wider ancient
Near East, see van de Mieroop 2007.
Chapter One
accounting, and geometry and the study of astronomy; technological

innovations such as the invention of writing, irrigation agriculture,
monumental architecture and granulated gold jewellery; and such specific
literary and philosophical ideas as the story of a great Flood that wiped out
civilisation save a single omniscient and divinely chosen survivor.
But the contribution explored in this essay is that of royal collecting,
and the concept that the Mesopotamians developed in which royal identity
was inherently related to and constructed by the collecting activities of
kings. The modes of behaviour involving the construction of lite identity
through collecting, so well known from later European eras, in fact have
ancient prototypes. One of the earliest European civilisations, that of the
Etruscans, had important links to Mesopotamia in its formative phases
during the seventh century BC. Etruria and the lite necropolises of the
Etruscan civilisation were closely connected to Mesopotamian artistic
production, as it is in the Etruscan tombs of the eighth and seventh
centuries BC that Mesopotamian imports first appear on the Italian
peninsula. The Etruscans were famous Orientalists, borrowing ideas such
as liver divination, and collecting jewellery and many other luxurious
objects from Western Asia.3 The Etruscans, in fact, collected the same
objects from their East that the Mesopotamians admired to their West, as
for example, bronze objects decorated in the Phoenician style and
produced in the coastal areas of Lebanon have been excavated from both
Etruscan tombs and Mesopotamian palaces.4
According to Jodi Magness, the Etruscans were ridiculed by ancient
Greek writers such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus for their love of
luxury, another trait that they shared with the lite of ancient
Mesopotamia, who had been condemned as decadent since the prophets of
the Old Testament contemptuously railed against the onslaught of the
Assyrians.5 Whether they are deserving of this reputation or not, Magness
argues that the Etruscans did not just import tangible goods, but possibly
also Near Eastern ideologies of power, evidenced by the adoption of
Near Eastern-style lite burial customs in the form of chariot-laden warrior
tombs and monumental architecture, neither of which existed in Italy prior
3 For an extensive discussion and bibliography of imported objects found in

Etruscan tombs and Near Eastern influences on Etruscan culture, see Magness
2001, 79-117.
4 From tombs at Praeneste and Caere (see Magness 2001, 83) in Etruria and from
the palace at Nimrud in Assyria (see Layard 1853, 149-70).
5 For a brief discussion of Old Testament images of decadent Assyrians, see
Thomason 2004.
to contact with the Near East in the eighth century BC.6 As Walter Burkert
has suggested, most ancient cultures were in fact highly receptive to ideas
from outside their own known worlds, and exhibited a willingness to
learn from what is other, what is strange and foreign.7
Syria and Phoenicia

One of the Near Eastern ideologies of power that may have been exported
to Etruria is the publicly rhetorical and highly political activity of
collecting exotic and luxurious objects from distant locales. While the
Etruscans probably looked east for their political models,8 to the Assyrians
of the early first millennium BC, the cultures to the west of Assyria in
Syria and Phoenicia represented high cultures with long traditions of
political stability and artistic ingenuityvenues from which the Assyrians
could learn from the other (Fig. 1). In fact, collecting objects from the
west had been a royal tradition in Mesopotamia since the third millennium
BC, when Sargon of Akkad bragged in his royal inscriptions that he
visited the cedars of Lebanon in his quest to become king from the Upper
Sea [the Mediterranean] to the Lower Sea [the Persian Gulf]. The
resource-rich mountains of Syria and Phoenicia, with their abundant
supply of metals and costly wood unavailable in Mesopotamia, might have
served as liminal sites to the Mesopotamians. Trade and diplomatic
missions with these regions to the west were prevalent from the earliest
periods in Mesopotamian history, as is fully supported by the royal
archives of the kingdom of Ebla in Syria, which document extensive
economic and trade relationships with Mesopotamian kingdoms in the
third millennium BC. Later, in the Babylonian version of the Epic of
Gilgamesh, which was standardised around 1700 BC, Gilgamesh and his
companion Enkidu travel to the Forest of Cedars in the Lebanese
mountains, where together they defeat the demon Humbaba, and thus gain
courage, strength and, most importantly, loyalty and solidarity. The Epic
reads:
6 Magness 2001, 92 and Prayon 2001, 335. Magness goes further to suggest that
the Near Eastern immigrants themselves settled in Etruria and hybridised into the
lite of the local society, thus it is not just ideas and goods that travelled and
became appropriated, but people as well, who brought their ideas and objects with
them.
7 Originally published in Burkert 1992, 129, and quoted in Magness 2001, 98.
8 See Rathje 2007.
Chapter One
They stood marvelling at the forest, gazing at the lofty cedars, gazing at
the forests entrance []. They saw the Mountain of Cedar, seat of gods
and goddesses thrones. On the face of the mountain the cedar proffered its
abundance, its shade was sweet and full of delight.9
This intriguing journey develops amidst the whispering pines of the

mountains west of Mesopotamia, in what I consider one of the first
instances of Occidentalisma deep fascination with, imagining of, and
desire to collect objects from ones West.10
Figure 1: Collon, D., Ancient Near Eastern Art 1995 (map Trustees of the
British Museum London.), frontispiece.
9 George 1999, 39.

10 I adapt this term from Edward Saids famous term Orientalism, which
describes a similar fascination with and imagining of the Middle East by Western
Europeans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (see Said 1978). The
literature on Saids Orientalism and its impact is vast; a standard anthology of
readings related to the reception of Saids idea can be found in Macfie 2000.
Turning back to the first millennium BC, there are several aspects and
objects of the lands to the west of Mesopotamia that continued to fascinate
the kings so much that they chose to collect as much as they could from
their western neighbours near and distant. The best documented subculture of the Mesopotamian heartland is that of the Neo-Assyrian Empire,
which conquered much of the ancient Near East beginning around 900
BC, from south-western Iran to Egypt, before succumbing to a coalition of
enemies in 612. It became a tradition for the Neo-Assyrian kings to found
new capital cities filled with grand palaces, gardens, temples and
ziggurats. In the ninth century, King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BC)
founded his new capital at Nimrud and then successfully expanded and
conquered parts of Syria and Phoenicia. Other kings added to the territory
under Assyrian control, with varying degrees of success, until the final
king of the empire, Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC), conquered Egypt from his
capital city of Nineveh in the mid-seventh century BC. This expansion
both contributed to and supported the Assyrian kings contention that, like
Sargon of Akkad 1500 years earlier, they were the rulers of the four
quarters of the world.
The Assyrian kings displayed their military and acquisitional feats in
the form of narratives carved in low relief on stone slabs inserted into their
mud brick palace walls. The kings also affirmed their ability to maintain
and expand the land in year-by-year historical accounts written in
cuneiform and found next to the reliefs in the palaces, as well as on clay
and stone tablets deposited within the buildings. The narrative images and
texts focus on the military battles, and it is no surprise that in them, the
Assyrian kings never lose. Yet, we must use these royal public relations
with caution, understanding that while they may not be trusted as
accurate accounts of what really happened, they are still useful as
fascinating artefacts that reveal the construction of royal identities and
ideologies of power.11
The collection of objects from the west played a great part in this
creation of royal identity. Bronze objects from Phoenicia were found in
both Etruscan tombs and the Assyrian palaces. In fact, there were several
such bowls excavated from Nimrud, an important capital of the empire, as
well as some bowls that were probably produced in Syria (Fig. 2).
However, the most abundant evidence for this collecting activity comes in
11 Since the 1980s, there have been many discussions in the scholarly literature on
Assyria of the propagandistic or ideological purpose of the relief narratives. The
most important contributions are from Liverani 1979, Reade 1979, Marcus 1987,
Winter 1981, and Russell 1991. Also, see most recently a discussion of Assyrian
imperial identity by Bedford 2009.
Chapter One
the form of thousands of fragments of furniture, boxes, and other small

portable items made from elephant ivory and excavated from the palaces
at Nimrud. These excavations have revealed that the kings of Assyria used
Nimruds palaces as a virtual storehouse for carved ivory fittings from the
ninth century until the city was sacked in 614-612 BC.12 While the
Assyrians had their own tradition of ivory carving, the artistic style of their
extant collections suggests that the majority of these objects were received
as tribute or plunder from Syria and Phoenicia. The annals attest to this
ivory collecting activity, as do some of the reliefs, which show Assyrian
soldiers collecting and offering intricately carved furniture to the kings.
Even with their own brand of artistic production, there is evidence from
both the reliefs and Assyrian royal correspondence that the kings
appreciated and even sought out products created by other cultures, most
notably those of the older high cultures to the west.13
Figure 2: Bowl, ninth century BC, diameter: 21.7cm, copper alloy, Nimrud, British
Museum (photo Trustees of the British Museum).
12 See especially Max Mallowans excavations of ivories from the 1950s

(Mallowan 1963).
13 See Thomason 2005 for specific textual references and their citations.
Figure 3: Relief, ninth century BC, height: 2.63m, width: 2.49m, gypsum, Nimrud,
British Museum (photo Trustees of the British Museum).
And by West, I do mean its entirety, as it is quite evident from images and
texts that the Assyrian kings also sought to imitate the animate botanical
and zoological specimens of Phoenicia and Syria. The kings re-created in
the parks and gardens of the Assyrian heartland one particular component
of the west, a mountain in Syria called Mount Amanus. For example, in
the ninth century BC, Ashurnasirpal claimed that he hunted lions and
received monkeys as tribute while on campaign in Syria, formed herds
of them, and displayed them in cages to all the people of the land (Fig.
3).14 Only 150 years later, Sennacherib (704-681 BC) proclaimed in his
royal inscriptions that a park, the likeness of Mount Amanus, in which all
the aromatic plants of Hatti [the Assyrian name for Syria] and fruit trees of
14 Grayson 1991, 226.
Chapter One
the mountains were planted, I set out for my subjects.15 The mountains
west of Assyria became a virtual clearinghouse for exotic flora and fauna
one that required emulation in the heartland.
Figure 4: Relief, seventh century BC, height: 2.08m, width: 1.30m, gypsum,
Nineveh, British Museum (photo Trustees of the British Museum).
Some scholars have suggested that even the architectural landscape of the
west was imported to Assyria. The Assyrian kings discuss in their royal
inscriptions the erecting of structures that they call bit-hilanis. The bithilani is a part Akkadian, part Syrian loan word meaning literally house
of hilani. A hilani was a building constructed in royal quarters at cities in
Syria during the late second and early first millennium BC. It probably
consisted of a small, detached building with a pillared portico, perhaps
raised on a platform.16 Sargon II (721-705 BC), who built a capital city at
Khorsabad in the time between Nimrud and Nineveh, discussed erecting
such a building near his palace and within his royal garden modelled after
15 Frahm 1997, 83.
16 There is a long-standing debate in the scholarly literature over the form and
function of the Syrian hilani, and of the Assyrian bit-hilani. For the most recent
discussion, see Foster 2004, 214 and references therein.
Mt. Amanus. There are also depictions in the reliefs from his and his
successors palaces of small, porticoed buildings on little hillocks (Fig. 4).
I have argued that these images represent western-style buildings
placed deliberately in western landscape settings replete with wild animals
and conifer treesand thus show us a glimpse of what the Assyrian kings
royal parks modelled after Mt. Amanus in Syria might have looked like.17
It is striking to see such complete and thoroughly integrated conceptions
of western landscapes, in which images and texts represent a truly
Occidentalist vision. In this Occidentalist imagining, the West and its
abundance of exotic and luxurious objects were constructed as a
beneficially acquired entity, one that ultimately was ordered by the royal
centre into Assyrianised territory. These living simulacra of the lands to
their west served in the construction of royal identity in that the
Mesopotamian kings were proclaiming that they had created the empire
in microcosm in the heartland.18
While certainly not considered divine in their polytheistic religion,
Mesopotamian kings were considered the most important humans on
earth, and were responsible for the maintenance of the gods earthly realm.
With the Assyrian kings, we do not have an attempt to claim divinity, for
any such attempts were soundly rebuked in Mesopotamian literature, but
to be as much of a creator as was possible for any mortal on earth; to be
the next best thing to the godsand certainly more powerful than any
other humans.19 Most importantly, the kings clearly wished to display their
acquisitional and creational abilities, both to the gods and to their home
audience, in the form of the objects themselves, and representations of
their collection in texts and images.
The Mediterranean Sea

These finished products and living landscapes from the west must have
been somewhat exotic to the Assyrians, but slightly more familiar than
other rarities mentioned in their royal inscriptions and depicted in their
palace reliefs. The Assyrian kings were proud of their ability to reach
17 Thomason 2001.
18 For the first advancement of this idea, especially with regard to the textual
evidence, see Liverani 1979 and Winter 1981. For discussion of the related images
in the reliefs, see Thomason 2001. This idea is also related to the suggestion of
Helms 1984 that rulers act as creators through the acts of travel and acquisition in
distant locales.
19 For more discussion of the religious and ritual roles of the Assyrian kings, see
Holloway 2001 and Porter 2005.
10
Chapter One
beyond Phoenicia to the Mediterranean Sea, and seem to have been

fascinated by the wildlife that they encountered there. In fact, some of the
Neo-Assyrian kings predecessors had already set a precedent for
Mediterranean fishing as early as the twelfth century BC. Tiglath-Pileser I
(1114-1076 BC), discusses his fishing exploits, [] a nahiru, which is
called a sea-horse [] I had killed with a harpoon of my own making in
the Great Sea (of the land of the West).20 In a correlating but later image
from Sargon IIs palace at Khorsabad dating to the eighth century BC, the
Assyrian artists attempted to show the strange characters of the sea life
that they witnessed (Fig. 5). The human-headed fish probably represent
genie-like spirits that the Mesopotamians believed inhabited the earth.
Exotic animals fascinated the Assyrian artists, but they did not always
directly witness them or did so only fleetingly, as their depictions are
sometimes awkwardly robotic. However, Ata has argued that this
representational style, which seems incoherent to the modern viewer,
might have been deliberate and appropriate for an Assyrian audience and
related to Assyrian notions of liminality.21 Furthermore, the Assyrian kings
took pains to point out that even if they could not capture these animals or
bring them back to Assyria, they did display to the home audience their
encounters with such natural curiosities in the form of statue zoos. For
example, Sargon II claims that he created animals resembling the creatures
of mountains and seas made of white stone by the entrance of his bit-hilani
at Khorsabad.22 A wall relief from the palace of Sargons son, Sennacherib,
at Nineveh portrays two lion sculptures used as column bases on the faade
of an Assyrian palace. Indeed, there is also physical evidence for such
animal statues, as many stone lions as well as other real and fantastic
creatures, such as human-headed bulls, have been found protectively
guarding doors and gateways throughout the Assyrian capitals. While the
animals depicted in Assyrian art were common in the Assyrian artistic
repertoire, the unfamiliar creatures described in historical narratives might
represent early examples of the cabinets of curiosity, or wunderkammern, so
popular with European lites during the Renaissance, and, I think, represent
true curiosities to the Assyrian kingsthat they were re-creating for the
first time for the people of their native land.
20 Grayson 1991, 26.
21 For a detailed discussion of the humanoid characteristics of these primates,
see Ata 2010, 22-8.
22 Fuchs 1994, 301. In addition to textual references, there is archaeological
evidence for these statue zoos. Archaeologists have excavated colossal carved
figures such as apotropaically important bullmen and lions, which flanked the
doorways of important rooms in the palaces.
11
Figure 5: Relief, eighth century BC, height: 3.08m, width: 4.09m, gypsum,
Khorsabad, Muse du Louvre (photo RMN-Grand Palais, Muse du Louvre, Art
Resource, NY/Herv Lewandowski).
Egypt
While Syria and Lebanon along with their desirable finished products and
living landscapes certainly fascinated the kings of Assyria enough to
12
Chapter One
inspire them to re-create them in the heartland, it is perhaps Egypt to the

distant west that occupied the space of the most exotic for the
Mesopotamian kings. Since Phoenician art is heavily Egyptianising, one
could argue that the Mesopotamian collecting of Phoenician objectsthe
ivories and bronze bowls discussed earlierdemonstrate an Assyrian
predilection for things Egyptian already by the ninth century BC. But it
was not until the late seventh century, in the reigns of Esarhaddon and
Ashurbanipal, that we have definitive proof that the kings actually
collected objects of authentic Egyptian origin. During the intervening
two centuries, the Assyrian kings and their armies had managed to subdue
Syria, Phoenicia, Israel, and Judah, and then turned to Egypt, a perennial
power in the Levant, which at the time was controlled by kings of Nubian
origin (called Kush by the Assyrians) from the Upper Nile.23 Egypts
monumental sculpturesspecifically their electrum-plated obeliskswere
intriguing enough to the Assyrians, that they had to invent a term for them
in their native tongue, referring to them as shining pillars, or tsimme
tsirate in the native Assyrian language.24 They also claimed to have stolen
the obelisks as booty and to have brought them back for display at
Nineveh. The obelisks served as trophies of the defeated Nubian kings, no
doubt, but they also served as metonymies in Assyria for the entirety of
exotic, powerful Egypt. While the obelisks themselves have not been
excavated, archaeologists did discover a scattering of actual Egyptian
objects at Nineveh. These include an Egyptian alabaster bowl inscribed in
cuneiform with the label booty of Kush.25 In addition, archaeologists
discoveredplaced very deliberately at the entrance to the royal treasury
at Ninevehthe remains of two sculptures inscribed with the royal
cartouches of Taharqa, the Nubian king of Egypt whom Ashurbanipal
defeated. Taharqas statuesque appearance at Nineveh coincided with
Esarhaddons (680-669 BC) forcible removal of Egyptian craftsmen to the
capital city. His inscriptions claim that the king compelled not only the
Egyptian king and his royal house to reside in Nineveh, but also other
exotic Egyptian personnel, including Egyptian scribes and snake
charmers.26
23 For detailed accounts of Egyptian-Nubian-Assyrian relations, see Spalinger
1974.
24 The word obelisk is actually a Greek word meaning dagger, prong and first
coined by Herodotus to describe these tall pointed pillars in Egypt. The ancient
Egyptians referred to their sculptures as tejen, implying strength or defence.
25 Leichty notes that the present location of the object is unknown, but a copy of
the inscription was published in 1929 (2011, 72).
26 Leichty 2011, 55.
13
And Beyond
Finally, there is the occasional mention in the Neo-Assyrian royal
inscriptions of the kings encounters with exotic fauna that in some ways
defied familiar naming. Tiglath-Pileser III (744-727 BC) claims to have
received as tribute live sheep, whose wool is dyed red-purple, [and]
flying birds of the sky whose wings are dyed blue-purple from a coalition
of Syrian, Phoenician and Arab rulers.27 And slightly later, we learn from
a fragmentary inscription from Nineveh that as Esarhaddon was
campaigning near the Brook of Egypt (presumably the Sinai, Syrian or
Eastern Desert of Egypt), he trampled over four leagues distance, a
journey of two days, through terrain full of two headed snakes [whose
venom] is deadly and I crossed over four leagues distance, a journey of
two days through terrain full of flying green [dragonflies].28 We have no
illustrations of these animals, but they were noteworthy enough to have
garnered mention in the royal inscriptions and clearly demonstrate a royal
Assyrian interest in curiosities encountered at the limits of the world that
they had explored. This royal desire to forge new paths and discover
things never seen before (or at least to claim such innovation) is reiterated
in a common textual motif that the kings incorporated into their annals;
they describe the opening of difficult paths while campaigning abroad.29
As one example, Sennacherib claims that while trekking through distant
areas, the mountains of Lebanon disclosed to him in the darkness stones
that the kings, my fathers, had never before laid eyes on.30 Claiming to
be the first to know and see such wonders, and indeed becoming the first
to record their discovery, demonstrates to some extent an Assyrian
taxonomic urgea desire to name and order the worldwhich pre-dates
by millennia Linnaeus or the Medici map room in the Palazzo Vecchio.31
27 Tadmor 1994, 69 and Leichty 2011, 48. The animals noteworthy colours were
most likely created by humans who physically dyed the wool and feathers. Dyed
wool is mentioned in the royal inscriptions, but never dyed sheep before this reign.
However, it is also possible that at least the birds might have had naturally
coloured feathers. The text therefore could have been referring to exotic birds that
normally inhabit the tropical forests of Africa but were somehow acquired by these
western kings through tribute and trade.
28 Leichty 2011, 88. There is a risk, here, however, of ascribing desert-like
properties singularly to the west, as Esarhaddons inscriptions also describe the
distant eastern Iranian plateau in similar terms (i.e. Leichty 2011, 20). The two
areas therefore represent in a more generic sense the limits of the known world.
29 Liverani 1979 terms this activity heroic priority.
30 Luckenbill 1927, 168.
31 See Zucchi 2011 and Turpin in this volume.
14
Chapter One
This interest in animal taxonomy can also be seen in the written

records of the larger Mesopotamian world. The Assyriologist Benjamin
Foster has remarked that As Mesopotamian writers observed animals,
they appreciated their fascinating variety in appearance and behaviour and
worked out systematic means to record these.32 More importantly,
according to Mesopotamian royal ideology, these textual and pictorial
claims of discovery and reconstruction attest to the kings innovative
acquisitional and creational identities. Such displays of exotica and
esoteric knowledge were associated with the Assyrian king and his
ability to foster and maintain empire, thus proving his legitimacy.33 In an
era of frequent palace coups and rivalries for the throne, proof of the
kings legitimacy would have been paramount to solidify support from
lites and foment popular approval. While very few commoners had
access to the palace, with its sculptural and decorative programme,
perhaps the most important group to whom such royal exploits were
displayed were those that could most easily dethrone the king: his
courtiers, scholarly advisors, and royal administrators. In addition, visitors
from rival or tributary kingdoms would have visited the palace during
diplomatic missions. On rare occasions, such as the inaugural opening of a
palace, commoners would have toured the grounds. And finally, the kings
charismatically paraded their royal regalia outside of the palaces in
triumphal processions, religious ceremonies, and other festivals.34 Palace
archives from Nimrud and Nineveh that record food and wine distributions
from the palace support the reconstruction of these display events and
hence disclose the composition of the audience of the decorative programs
of the palaces and their contents.35
Conclusion
What, therefore, might a scholar of collecting and display during the
Italian Renaissance, French Baroque, or Victorian Britain gain from this
early material? First and foremost, they may recognise that collecting and
display have been royal and courtly prerogatives, essential to the creation
of lite identity, since the advent of dynastic kingship. I have focused in
this contribution on the period for which we have the most information
32 Foster 2002 and Ata 2010, 82-3.
33 For further discussion of esoteric knowledge and exotica in the ancient Near
East see Feldman 2007 and Ata 2010.
34 For further discussion of the audience and display of Neo-Assyrian royal
rhetoric see Thomason 2005.
35 For example see Kinnier Wilson, 1972.
15
about Mesopotamia, the Neo-Assyrian period of the first millennium BC.

Secondly, this collecting behaviour did not represent indiscriminate
hoarding and consumption. I argue that some of the Assyrians
acquisitional behaviours reflect refined selection and tastes for older, more
established cultural products. The collections of the Assyrian kings
showed a predilection for westernSyrian and Phoenicianobjects that
must have been related to their military expeditions, but also to the desire
to establish associations with those renowned high cultures. Thirdly, the
kings of Mesopotamia noticed and collected exotica, and more
importantly, named and ordered these unfamiliar objects from the West, as
they claimed for the first time, in order to demonstrate their ability to
order the unknown. Finally, the most important lesson that scholars of
more recent periods might take away is the idea that collecting is related to
identity, and more importantly, that through collecting, royal figures desire
to be as close to the divine as possible. The Assyrian kings displayed their
actions as creators of the world in microcosm. By crafting their earthly
domain,36 they behaved like their gods, who had honed the macrocosm.
36 I borrow this terminology of crafting from Helms 1984.
CHAPTER TWO
DIPLOMACY AND COLLECTING:
THE CHOISEUL-GOUFFIER COLLECTION
AND ITS HISTORY
PATRICK MICHEL
In the history of collecting the remains of Greek art, count ChoiseulGouffiers collection is by no means the first or foremost. Against the
troubled political background marked by a rapprochement between Turkey
and Great Britain and the growing antagonism between the latter and
France, diplomat collectors, Lord Elgin, Hamilton and Choiseul-Gouffier
among others, tried to take advantage of their position as ambassadors to
amass prestigious collections to an extent that might well be called
pillaging. An echo of this can be found in Chateaubriands account of
his fellow tourists behaviour in his Itinraire de Paris Jrusalem
(1811).1 Interference by the diplomatic corps at archaeological sites
became an important political issue at a time when the question of the
existence of museums and their legitimacy was on the agenda in France
and England. The main purpose of this essay is to measure the relationship
between the work of Choiseul Gouffier and the degree of knowledge of
I would like to thank Marie Cambefort for her translation of this essay for the
conference.
1 Chateaubriand 1968, 144 and 147, confessed to picking up (and perhaps breaking
off) fragments of the foremost monuments of the ancient world, comparing his
own brand of cultural vandalism favourably to that of Choiseul-Gouffier and
Elgin: Je pris, en descendant de la citadelle, un morceau de marbre du Parthnon;
javais aussi recueilli un fragment de la pierre du tombeau dAgamemnon; et
depuis jai toujours drob quelque chose aux monuments sur lesquels jai pass.
Ce ne sont pas daussi beaux souvenirs de mes voyages que ceux quont emports
M. de Choiseul et lord Elgin; mais ils me suffisent.
18
Chapter Two
Greek art in France towards the end of the Ancien Rgime and to show
how far the building of his collection contributed to a renewed
understanding in Western Europe of Greek art, at a particular moment
when the ancient sites of Greece and Asia Minor captured the attention of
travellers and collectors. Yet it is important to remember that if ChoiseulGouffier contributed to the enrichment of the national collections and to
feeding the debate between the defenders of Greek versus Roman art, by
dint of allowing the display of some of the most important works of Greek
art at the Paris Museum, this happened against his wishes and is the result
of the dispersal of his collections after his death.
Such an exhibition could of course not remain without consequences for
our perception of Greek art, even though the effect was without doubt less
evident than with the Elgin marbles at the British Museum. Presumably the
entry of a series of noteworthy inscriptions into the national collections was
more to the advantage of scholars than to the aesthetes seeking beautiful art
or to the general public. Conversely, the rivalry among Western tourists in
their rush to appropriate ancient Greek remains, the prices paid by them for
such findings, and the media interest in the dispersal of the ChoiseulGouffier collections in 1818 contributed to the grip on the public
consciousness, initially on the part of foreign observers, later in Greece after
independence, of the historical value of the Greek heritage. This is certainly
the long-term effect with which Choiseul-Gouffier and his Hellenistic
dream need to be, at least partially, credited. Very probably systematic
collecting by Choiseul-Gouffier and his agents in Greece and Asia Minor
offered a role model that would influence the policies of future
archaeological missions that were sent by the French government from 1829
onwards and that enriched the national collections of antiquities.
The Search for Ancient Greece

The Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grce dans le milieu du IVe sicle
(1789) by Abb Jean-Jacques Barthlemy (1716-1795) had not yet been
published when Marie Gabriel Florent, comte de Choiseul-Gouffier (17521817) (Fig. 6) set sail for Greece for the first time in 1776.2 He was a
young aristocrat, eager to discover ancient Greece: I was driven by
intense curiosity and would be overwhelmed with wonder; I anticipated
2 Over the past decade the bibliography dedicated to Choiseul-Gouffier has
increased considerably: Barbier 2000, 223-64 and idem 2002, 3-12; Cavalier 2007a
and idem 2007b; Hamiaux 2007, 94-107; Poumarde 2007, 24-39; Queyrel 2009,
1143-59 and idem 2007, 138-9; also see the most recent monographic treatment by
Barbier 2000.
Diplomacy and Collecting
19
the pleasure of covering that illustrious region with books by Homer and
Herodotus in hand.3 In 1784, he was appointed French ambassador to the
Sultan in Constantinople.4 Between these two sojourns, he started to gather
the material to write a book, Voyage pittoresque de la Grce. The first
volume was published in 1782 and became a model that brought enormous
fame to its author. Encouraged by its reception, Choiseul-Gouffier took
advantage of his position as ambassador to organise a scientific expedition
which included the painters Louis-Sebastien Fauvel and Louis-FrancoisSebastien Cassas, the philologist Ansse de Villoison, the astronomer
Tondu, the Hellenist Jean-Baptiste le Chevallier, the geographer Barbier
du Bocage and the poet Jacques Delille.
When Choiseul-Gouffier started writing his book, he could not claim
that it was the first of its kind, let alone that it opened up new fields of
investigation. A few years before, the Frenchman Le Roys Les Ruines des
plus Beaux Monuments de la Grce (1758, second edition 1770) and the
Englishmen Stuart and Revetts Antiquities of Athens (1762), had notably
increased the contemporary knowledge of Greek monuments. Like these
authors, Choiseul-Gouffier indissolubly linked Greece to antique ruins.5
What is more, he also linked it to inscriptions, its epigraphic monuments.
There again, by collecting these scattered fragments of history, ChoiseulGouffier imitated two famous pioneers whose achievements have been
remarkably described by Henri Omont;6 those of Charles Marie Franois
Olier, marquis de Nointel (1670-1674) and of Abb Michel Fourmont
(1729-1730).7
3 Choiseul-Gouffier, 1782, I, i, Discours prliminaire.
4 Choiseul Gouffier was chosen for this post for his familiarity with this country
and its people but also and principally for the fact that he was in favour of the
traditional alliance with the Sublime Porte against Britain; see Grell 1995a, II, 24450. The political issues of this ambassadorial mission have been remarkably well
analysed by Grell 1995b, XXVII, 223-35.
5 Sonnini, 1997, 10.
6 Omont, 1902.
7 Sent by Louis XIV on an ambassadorial mission to Constantinople in 1670, the
marquis de Nointel was accompanied by the young orientalist Antoine Galland and
the painter J. Carrey who were entrusted with documenting the Parthenon frieze.
Nointel also profited from this sojourn by putting together a collection of
antiquities, notably of inscriptions that were visited and described by Jacob Spon
in his Voyage dItalie, de Dalmatie, de Grce et du Levant fait dans les annes
1675 et 1676. Some of these inscriptions are now in the Louvre. Michel Fourmont,
(1690-1746), member of the Acadmie des Inscriptions, was part of a group sent
by Louis XV to the Orient. He travelled to Constantinople and all over Greece to
collect manuscripts and inscriptions.
20
Chapter Two
Figure 6: M.F. Dien after Boilly, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, lithograph (photo:

private collection).
Did Choiseul-Gouffier seek to emulate these men? Was he aware of their

works? It would be quite interesting to know how far he was inspired by
these diplomats-archaeologists. Unlike Fourmont who had accumulated
casts of inscriptions, Choiseul-Gouffier brought back originals to France.
In that respect, he was closer to Nointel. Indeed, both cases evolved from a
purely scholarly stance on collecting antique monuments.
21
A New Approach
Contrary to Pingaud, who claimed that Choiseul was looking for
exquisite pieces of art rather than the fragmentary history of a
civilisation,8 we think that he adopted an innovative method. Indeed, the
comtes attitude differed from traditional aristocratic patterns. He
preferred scholarly research to aesthetics, thus resembling the comte de
Caylus.9 Although he deeply admired antique literature and Greek myths,
Choiseul-Gouffier adopted what could be defined as a scientific stance. At
first, he was an enthusiastic youth,10 travelling in an area poetically
described, and consecrated by History. Then his infatuation was
transformed into an objective, reasoned and critical position: ChoiseulGouffier turned into a scholar. During his first trip and most of all during
his lengthy stay as ambassador, he constantly compared ancient sources
(Homer, Herodotus, Pausanias, and Thucydides) to reality. However, the
preliminary discourse of his Voyage pittoresque did not include any
methodology; political considerations were predominant and ChoiseulGouffier appeared as a very active philhellene. Nonetheless his book
detailed his ambitions:
I have seen all the places in person, I have seen all the monuments of
which the drawings will be engraved; the only claim of this book is to
present the actual state of the Country with the utmost accuracy [].
Lovers of Antiquity will be thankful for the pains I took over proving that
their worship of this beautiful country was no superstitious cult. They
might also thank me for hiring enlightened artists in order to investigate
11
these precious ruins and draw the true principles of the arts from there.
8 Pingaud 1887, 41 presents questionable arguments and dated views; this book is
the earliest monograph devoted to Choiseul-Gouffier.
9 Anne Claude Philippe de Thubires de Grimoard de Pestels de Lvy, comte de
Caylus, author of Recueil dantiquits gyptiennes, trusques, grecques, romaines
et gauloises (Paris, 1752-1768).
10 Choiseul-Gouffier 1782, II, 1.
11 Ibid., I, 1-2: Jai vu par moi-mme tous les lieux, jai vu tous les monuments
dont les dessins vont tre gravs; la seule prtention de cet ouvrage est de
reprsenter avec la plus grande exactitude ltat actuel du Pays []. Ceux qui
chrissent lantiquit, me sauront au moins gr des efforts que jai faits pour
prouver que le culte quils rendent ces belles contres, nest pas un culte
superstitieux. Peut-tre aussi mauront-ils lobligation davoir engag des artistes
plus clairs se transporter sur les lieux, pour interroger ces ruines prcieuses & y
puiser les vrais principes des arts.
22
Chapter Two
The Material Culture of Greece

In 1818 Dubois wrote that during the nine years comte Choiseul-Gouffier
spent as French ambassador to the Sultans court, he had dedicated himself
to:
hav[ing] maps drawn of Greeces most historically interesting areas, to
have views of diverse cities drawn, either due to their historical interest or
to the monuments they are still sheltering [], to collect all kinds of
antiquities, statues, bas-reliefs, vases, altars, tomb-stones, to have all the
finest architectural monuments from Greece and Asia Minor drawn or cast
either in their actual state or to restore them to their original integrity [].
The reunion of those particular works aimed at creating a faithful image of
that beautiful country through its monuments, sites and the material
remains of its grandeur. As his friend Abb Barthelemy had portrayed it by
considering its civic and religious customs, laws, morals, and knowledge in
12
all fields.
For Choiseul-Gouffier, collecting material thus took on several

complementary forms: drawings and lists of monuments, casts and a
specific will to reunite originals, mainly inscriptions. Although these three
domains were tightly connected in Choiseul-Gouffiers view, as he tried to
gather comprehensive material to write history, we will stick to his activity
as a collector in the traditional meaning of the word. He was assisted in his
task by the French honorary vice-consul in Athens, Joseph Dimitre de
Gaspary, the painters Cassas and above all Fauvel;13 as well as an engineer
of the Highway department named Foucherot.14 Later on, the archaeologist
L.J.J Dubois who supplied the drawings included in the second volume of
the Voyage Picturesque and the architect Jacques-Guillaume Legrand,
although he did not accompany him to Greece, joined the team.
For Choiseul-Gouffier, understanding a country and its history was the
result of an investigation, a precise study of the land, in particular of its
ruins, in conjunction with drawings and lists since accurate maps and
12 Dubois 1818, ii later discussed the history of the Choiseul Gouffier collection in
the preface to the sales catalogue after the comtes death.
13 Among the abundant literature on Fauvel we would like to cite the groundbreaking article by Legrand 1897, XXX, 41-67, 185-201, 385-404 and XXXI,
1897, 94-103 and 185-223. More recently: Beschi1983, IV, 3-12 and idem 1984, I,
319-23, II, 450-1 and 2001, 72-120; Zambon 2007, 62-83; idem 2009 and also
2010, 139-56.
14 See Pinon 2007, 41-5.
23
faithful drawings are the most reliable commentaries on history.15 In

1805, in a memorandum sent to a member of the French government, he
explained his views again:
As soon as I arrived in Constantinople, I took up again my works on
Antiquity. As I wanted to increase my collection of precious drawings, I
decided to send away the artists who were with me to diverse Eastern
16
countries. I sent Mr. Fauvel to Athens and Mr. Cassas to Syria.
Since he had a disagreement with the latter during the Revolution, the
comte wrote an Explanation on Mr. de Choiseul-Gouffiers complaint in
1805 in order to clear up the circumstances during which the artist had
worked for him:
Upon my instructions and at my expense, as one might expect, he travelled
all over that province; he drew the ruins of Balbec. Thanks to the measures
I had taken for his escort and the Pashas protection, he went to Palmyra
where he remained longer than anyone else. After spending a few months
in Egypt, he came back to me with a great wealth of sketches,
measurements and interesting material.17
Since Choiseul-Gouffier realised how difficult it was to put together such

an important number of documents, he decided to send Cassas to Rome,
which was the only place it was possible to hire qualified and able
draughtsmen as collaborators; their efforts in working on the collected
material resulted in numerous and magnificent drawings. Although at
first the comte declared that his sole intention had been to decorate a
gallery with those drawings, he changed his mind and contemplated
having them engraved in order to illustrate a book on Palmyra and Balbec
as a sequel to his Voyage Picturesque.18 Although the project was never
completed, a number of drawings appeared in his posthumous sale.
15 Choiseul Gouffier 1782, I, 1-2.

16 National archives T. 153/160 Voyage pittoresque de Palmyre et de Balbec.
Eclaircissements sur la reclamation de Mr de Choiseul-Gouffier, Paris, 13
February 1805, fol. 1r.
17 Ibid., fol. 1r and v.
18 Ibid., fol. 2r.
24
Chapter Two
Casts
The constitution of a reference-collection of casts represented one of the
most interesting aspects of Choiseuls collection. What the Royal
Academy had (partly) achieved with ancient Roman sculpture a century
earlier, comte Choiseul-Gouffier sought to do with ancient Greece: a cast
collection offered as examples to artists, in particular monumental casts of
ancient Greek temples. Choiseuls aim echoed contemporary views, for
example those of Leon Dufourny, Legrand and Molinos as Werner
Szambien has demonstrated.19 Sculptors had been using casts for a long
time when the practice started to be picked up by architects as well. The
aim was to provide indisputable documentation [] to draw as close to
scientific truth as possible.20 In some cases, Choiseul-Gouffier justified
casts by the moral necessity not to alter the integrity of the monument or
to deprive the people of their right to keep their heritage.21 In reality, he
was not always so scrupulous.
The project grew to an unprecedented scale from the time ChoiseulGouffier was appointed French ambassador to Constantinople. A letter
dated May 1786 first mentioned casts after originals. Choiseul-Gouffier
sent Fauvel to Athens with the intention of making casts from sculptures
in the Temple of Minerva.22 However, Fauvel declared to the Temporary
Art Commission in 1794 that he was in charge of supervising the
engravings for his book as well as plaster casts of antique monuments
which I had suggested to him.23 Fauvel may indeed have been the
originator of such a project. It was carried out in February 1787: 26 boxes
were shipped to France.24 The casts included the friezes and metopes from
the temple of Minerva, bas-reliefs from the temple of Theseus and from
the temple of Victory. At the same period, Fauvel announced to ChoiseulGouffier the forthcoming shipping of the Caryatid, a cast of one of the
best-known sculptures of the Erechtheion.25
19 Szambien 1988, 23-4.
20 Ibid., 24.
21 Dubois 1818, ii: At his own great expense, he had also sculptures cast that
could be precious models for the study of art, transportation of which might have
provoked extreme damage or violence.
22 Letter from Gaspary to the Minister, Athens, 29 May 1786, quoted by Rayet
1884, 55. On Fauvels intervention, see Beschi 1982 and 1984, I, 319-23.
23 Paris, Nat. Archives, F.17, 1047, File 7, quoted by Szambien 1988, 55.
24 Letter from Gaspary, 1 February 1787, quoted by Rayet 1884, 38.
25 BnF, NAF, 7558, fol. 1 r and v, undated letter and fol. 4 v, letter from Athens,
20 February 1787.
25
Collecting Originals
Like his predecessors and contemporary antiquaries, Choiseul-Gouffier
took an interest in all types of objects giving concrete evidence of the past,
or what Caylus called proofs of history,26 mainly inscriptions. For
Choiseul-Gouffier, scholarly tradition was more important than artistic
pleasure as he gave priority to research and to collecting epigraphic
monuments. He officially belonged to the scholarly tradition when he
became a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Literature in 1779.
That made him rank among the contemporary Hellenistic scholars. Indeed,
Choiseul-Gouffier preferred inscriptions to any other archaeological
document or source, as he explained in the first part of the second volume
of his Voyage Pittoresque, published as late as 1809:
Though medals are precious monuments, equally useful to history and
geography, how much more precious the marbles, which the Ancients
entrusted with their laws, decrees and homage to citizens benefiting their
homeland. Inscriptions take us back to the periods they were meant to
perpetuate. We are pleased to see that we somehow fulfilled the wish of the
Ancients: conserving these inscriptions means repaying the obligation they
handed down to beneficiary generations; it means repaying the ample
inheritance of centuries of glory, which will provide us with models for
27
ever.
Dwelling on the well-known example of the Paros marblesa unique

monument which enlightens forever the illustrious epochs of Greek history
until Alexanders reignhe acknowledged that although not all the
remaining inscriptions reawaken such memories, they are nevertheless all
worthy of attention because they nearly all offer instructive details on
forms of government, religion, morals, knowledge on the Ancients. They
are useful to correct History and they represent the most precious evidence
for geography as they settle its uncertainties [...]. All are thus worthy of
our interest.28
26 Schnapp 1993, 295.

27 Choiseul-Gouffier 1782, II, 160. Inscriptions.
28 Ibid.
26
Chapter Two
Figure 7: L.F.S. Dupr, LAcropole, vue de la maison du consul de France, M.

Fauvel, lithograph (photo: private collection).
That collection of archaeological remains soon grew, thanks to the work of

three French vice-consuls: Gaspary in Athens, Kauffer in Constantinople
and Amoreux in Smyrna, to whom should be added Cousinery, the consul
in Salonika, a great collector of medals, and most of all, painterarchaeologist Fauvel (Fig. 7), the most efficient agent of all. These
collaborators travelled all over Greece, leaving no spot uncovered. The
comtes first requests date back to 1786. Already, his ambition as collector
clearly appeared, as a letter sent to Fauvel in August showed. Alluding to a
firman (Turkish governmental decree), he said:
I would like it to serve as a pretext for you to take some nice bas-reliefs;
since you get along so well with the Disdar, it should be an easy task [].
I beg you not to spare your pains to get some beautiful marble pieces and
please ask any Greek person you may know to provide you with all the
27
pieces or engraved stones they can find. Also scrutinise Athens and its
surroundings and do write notes for me that I will use in my book.29
He went as far as contemplating the removal of one of the famous

Erechtheion caryatids.30 Other letters dating back to the same period attest
to Choiseul-Gouffiers wish to loot the country. Fauvel lent a willing hand
and did not hesitate to steal, according to his own words, a Stratonician
inscription on a votive stele topped with a tasteful pediment which he
pulled out from the Daou monastery pavement in Athens. His justification
was that there was no other way.31
From 1787, the discoveries and ship loads were legion. At that time,
inscriptions were mentioned in the correspondence. Gaspary answered
him: I have just got permission to take four [marbles] on which there are
some intriguing inscriptions: two were in Athens and the other two were in
Eleusis.32 Gaspary also announced his find, next to the Piraeus port, of a
very beautiful marble with four figures and an inscription as well as
three votive steles representing men and women saying farewell; there is
a gorgeous floweret on one of these and inscriptions can be found on all
three steles. Gaspary also shipped a stone on which an inscription
mentions the museum area accompanied by a small statue of Minerva
and Esculapius which he intended to give Choiseul-Gouffier.33 These last
letters showed the essential part Gaspary played in the collecting of
monuments.
At some point, probably at the beginning of the year 1787, Fauvel
announced to Choiseul the shipping of twenty-eight boxes with plaster
casts and four boxes with some marble pieces, small bas-reliefs, votive
steles etc. []. He also mentioned two trips to the surroundings of
Athens and to Eleusis where we removed two inscriptions.34 The
information matched up with Gasparys aforementioned shipment. Fauvels
letter also related the researchers everyday life and their difficulties,
especially when dealing with massive and heavy pieces:
I saw a pedestal inscribed on both sides being painfully transported. Four
oxen were needed, although it was but a trough serving as a fountain. As it
29 BnF, ms Fr 22873, fol. 157, Choiseul-Gouffier to Fauvel, 16 August 1786.
30. Ibid.; Why could you not take away one of the Caryatids, there is a well-kept
one.
31 Legrand 1897, 30, 56; Journal de Fauvel, 28 October 1788.
32 Ibid. These two inscriptions correspond to number 63 and 64 in the Louvre
inscriptions; see Froehner 1865, 136-8.
33 Letter from Gaspary, 1 February 1787, quoted by Rayet 1884, 55.
34 BnF, ms NAF, 7558, fol.1, undated letter.
28
Chapter Two
was out of use, it had been overturned. After unearthing and lifting it up at
the end of the day, some guards spent a snowy night there as they feared
we wanted to steal their treasure. They were cleaning and emptying it.35
In August 1788, from the isle of Santorini, where he was carrying out
excavations, Fauvel talked about shipping nineteen marble pieces which
could be damaged if left on the seaside. They would arouse curiosity if
they stayed in six-foot long boxes for too long. The marble boxes not
labelled as Inscriptions could be destroyed by malevolent people.36 It
seems that those inscriptions were to be shipped to Marseilles. From a list
attached to that letter, we know the exact content of the shipment: eight
inscriptions, an altar, a bust, pieces of marble and columns. Fauvel also
informed Choiseul of recent discoveries made during the same excavation:
I found bits and pieces, a superbly draped seven-foot high headless female
figure [Fig. 8], very slightly damaged. It stood in the earth and bore
beautiful inscriptions from different centuries. I also found parts of figures,
some beautiful marble blocks to be put to good use or to be restored; a full
Doric column bearing a well-conserved nine-foot high inscription []. I
have conducted excavations in the vineyard and I found there many bizarre
bronze and earthenware objects: a life-size child figure, its head well
conserved.37
Other objects were presents. In February 1788, Gaspary declared: The

Commander of Athens has just offered me a marble piece with a tree in
between two figures and an interesting inscription.38 The vice-consuls
zeal enabled Choiseul-Gouffier to obtain high-quality pieces. The year
1788 may be considered a decisive moment in the formation of the
collection. In May 1788, an inscription regarding the finances of the
Athenian people was unearthed; Choiseul hastened to acquire it. Once in
Paris, the piece was studied and published later by Abb Barthlemy who
deemed it one of the most precious antiquities and decided to call it
Choiseul marble (Fig. 9).39
35 Ibid.
36 BnF, ms NAF 7558, fol.6 vo, letter from Fauvel to Choiseul, sent from
Santorini, 4 August 1788.
37 Ibid., fol.6 v. 7, letter sent from Santorini, 4 August 1788.
38 Letter from Gaspary to the Minister, Athens, 6 February 1788, published in
Rayet 1884, 57.
39 Barthlemy 1792, 1. For a scientific study of that exceptional object, see
Kendrick Pritchett 1970. I want to thank Fabrice Far for showing and lending me
this book.
29
Figure 8: A draped seven-foot high headless female figure, drawing, Paris, BNF,
Prints and Drawings, GB 15 C Petit Fol. (photo: BNF)
30
Chapter Two
Figure 9: Choiseul marble, Paris, Muse du Louvre, dpartment des Antiquits

grecques, trusques et romaines (photo: Louvre).
31
However, Choiseul-Gouffiers most prestigious acquisition occurred in

February 1788. Gaspary informed him that the Commander of Athens had
given him permission to collect a metope that had come off the temple of
Minerva.40 It was the tenth metope on the south side of the Parthenon,
representing the Centaur and the Lapith Woman.41 That was how
Choiseul-Gouffier gained the most famous item of his collection. A few
years later, controversy developed from the conditions surrounding that
acquisition. Two differing opinions then emerged. Dubois asserted that
Fauvel picked up the metope at the bottom of the temple,42 whereas
Lord Elgin maintained that it had been pulled off the south wall.43 His
accusation was all the more delicate (and justified) in the light of a letter
written by Choiseul-Gouffier to Fauvel a few years before, in which he
said that he was ready to do anything to achieve his aim: My dear Fauvel,
please use every possible means of looting what can be looted in Athens
and its territory. Your description of Antiopes tomb gave me great
pleasure: go on, do not spare anyone, neither the living nor the dead.44
We are far from the idyllic portrait drawn by Dubois who praised
Choiseul-Gouffiers moderation and his kind renunciation of those
famous marbles placed on the church door of the Greek village IeniScheher (formerly Sigea):45 An English traveller showed fewer scruples
and forcibly embarked these marbles in 1802. Again Emeric-David
presented an idealised portrait of Choiseul the sincere friend of Greece,
travelling about that classical land respectfully and peacefully, which
forbade him to maim the monuments or pull off their ancient decorations.
He would not use the permits delivered by the Ottoman government to
remove isolated objects when it seemed to sadden the poor heirs of those
40 Letter dated 27 February 1788, quoted by Rayet 1884, 57.

41 Froehner 1865, 228, n. 126.
42 Dubois 1818, 37, n. 105.
43 Michon 1894, 6-7.
44 BnF, ms Fr. 22873, fol. 164, Letter from Choiseul-Gouffier to Fauvel,
Constantinople, 14 February 1789: ne ngligez aucun moyen, mon cher Fauvel,
de piller dans Athnes et son territoire, tout ce quil y a de pillable. An
approximate and truncated excerpt was published by Ph.E. Legrand 1897, 57.
45 Dubois 1818, iii:: Le mme esprit de modration le fit galement renoncer la
possession des fameux marbres, placs la porte de lglise du village grec de
Ieni-Scheher (anciennement Sige), ds quil connut la rpugnance que les
habitans de ce lieu montroient les laisser enlever [], juquen 1802, quun
voyageur moins compatissant pour les foiblaisses humaines , les fit embarquer de
vive force, sans compenser mme par aucun acte de gnrosit, les regrets et les
traitemens barbares quprouvrent alors ces malheureux paysans.
32
Chapter Two
artists who invented the rules and the models of good taste.46 These
perfect character portraits must have been commissioned (or they were
intended for rehabilitation); no definite answer as to their veracity can be
provided. One may well ask whether the image of Choiseul-Gouffier,
owner of a highly-coveted collection and a controversial character who
was ready to do anything to get hold of Greek art treasures is correct.
Before choosing a side, it is necessary to bear in mind the historical and
archaeological stakes, i.e. the conflict between the French and the English
over the Parthenon sculptures.47 One also should remember that if France
up to the end of the Ancien Rgime had been a traditional ally of the
Sublime Porte, between 1799 and 1806 the Porte was at war with Russia
and France and benefited from British protection. The sultan was not in a
position to refuse anything to the English, while the Greeks under the
Turkish yoke were quite powerless and unable to preserve their cultural
heritage.
When considering Choiseul-Gouffiers acquisitions, it seems that the
bulk of his collection was obtained in 1787-88. Indeed, between March
1787 and May 1791, no less than seventeen shiploads arrived in
Marseilles, where the objects were to be stored in big warehouses until the
end of the Revolution.48
An Unfortunate Collection: its Peregrinations,

Losses and Dispersion
The story of the Choiseul-Gouffier collection included episodes of
peregrination and loss. At the beginning of 1793, the royalist ChoiseulGouffier felt threatened; he hastened away from Constantinople and took
refuge in St Petersburg where he was appointed President of the Royal
Academy of Fine Arts. In January or February 1793, immediately after
Choiseul had left, Fauvel confiscated the ex-ambassadors goods, pleading
unpaid bills. The turmoil of the French Revolution may have prompted
Fauvel to show his devotion and zeal to the young Republic.49 Some
marbles and casts were thus stored in the Capuchin hospice in Athens. In
46 Emeric-David 1853, 252.
47 On that essential question, see St Clair 1988.
48 These shiploads are listed in Esperandieu 1898, v. 58, 163.
49 Paris, Foreign Office Archives, personal files, Fauvel, box 121; letter from
Fauvel to Citizen Descorches, extraordinary envoy of the Republic, Athens, 28
Frimaire, an III [18 December 1794]. Descorches, Republican Ambassador,
replaced Choiseul-Gouffier. Fauvel may have confiscated Choiseuls goods to
preserve them. Let us not draw hasty conclusions!
33
Paris, Choiseuls goods were also confiscated and the Temporary Art
Commission investigated the possibility of seizing the legendary
collection, the location of which could not be determined at the time.
Anyone who might have had pertinent information was interrogated. The
proceedings highlighted the enmity of the comtes former collaborators, in
particular the animosity between Cassas and Foucherot.
The bulk of the collection had been stored in two warehouses in
Marseilles since 1787. Anticipating orders from Paris, Marseilles
temporary administrators confiscated Choiseul-Gouffiers antiquities as
early as 1792. On 27 February 1793 (An II), a precise descriptive
inventory of the collection served to allocate the items between the Paris
museum and the one in Marseilles.50 Indeed, following the confiscation
of migrs goods by a decree dated 10 October 1792, these objects were
removed from Choiseul-Gouffiers property sale and placed in the
Museum of the Republic. One of the highlights of the Choiseul
collection, the slab of the Ergastines, then called Panathenean frieze,
was thus sent to the Paris Museum, probably in April 1798 according to
Jean Marcad and Christiane Pinatel.51 Another part of the collection
which had remained in Smyrna disappeared in 1797: twenty-five boxes
filled with precious pieces of marble may have been burnt (or
embezzled?) during the blaze that destroyed part of the city.52
In 1802 Choiseul-Gouffier came back to France and had his name
crossed off the migr list. He then endeavoured to regain the objects and
material he had collected before the Revolution in order to continue
writing his Voyage Pittoresque. The architect Legrand was in charge of
gathering the seized marbles and casts, which he managed in part, by July
1802. However, Fate struck Choiseul-Gouffier again. In the spring of
1802, the corvette Arabe was transporting twenty-six boxes full of marbles
when it was inspected by an English frigate commanded by Lord
Nelson. Dubois related the well-known story and its outcome:
when he became aware of the name of the man owning that scientific load,
the noble Lord did not hesitate at all; after his officers generously refused
to confiscate the boxes, he sent the antiquities to Malta. He was only too
pleased to give them back to Choiseul when that illustrious sailors
50 The 77-page long document was entitled: Inventaire descriptif des Marbres et
Inscriptions de lEmigr Choiseul-Gouffier. One copy is preserved at the National
museums archives (Z 4 1798), the other one is held at the Nat. Arch. (T 153/160).
On the latter version, marginalia locate each object listed.
51 Marcade and Pinatel, 1984, I, 338.
52 Emeric-David, 253.
34
Chapter Two
glorious deathwhich occurred a short while after during the Trafalgar
battlemade it easier for some less-refined travellers (Lord Elgin) to
appropriate them.53
Those boxes contained important pieces, in particular the fourteenth

Parthenon metope, which rendered the loss all the more distressing.
Choiseul-Gouffier endeavoured to recover his pieces, all in vain.54 He also
had to give up trying to recover other antiquities, formerly in Kerson,
which had been transported to Odessa.55 Among these could be found an
exceptional green porphyry column, several mummy coffins, painted
vases found in Athens Ceramic area [Kerameikos, North-Western area in
Athens], as well as objects excavated in 1784 in the Trojan plain during a
tomb search, then considered to be Achilles burial place.56
The Empires administration of the new museum endeavoured to
acquire the Choiseul marbles left in Marseilles since they exactly
corresponded to what Napoleons Louvre needed. However, only the
frieze representing the great Panathenean feast was exhibited in the
Seasons Room as early as July 1802. The other fragments were handed
back to their legitimate owner, Choiseul-Gouffier.57 The restitution was far
from complete since the Marseilles museum kept some pieces.
After Choiseul-Gouffier came back into favour and became one of
Louis XVIIIs peers, he threw himself into the task of reassembling and
completing his collection. He managed to recover some pieces which had
remained in Constantinople after he went into exile. In a letter dated
January 1816, he mentioned the forthcoming shipping of marbles and
other antiquities left in Constantinople; they have been awaiting for
twenty-five years the favourable circumstances the Heavens are now
bestowing upon us. He also lamented the fact that the too-zealous
Customs Director of Marseilles demanded an estimate of the Greek
inscriptions and some bas-reliefs in order to collect taxes on what
Choiseul considered purely scholarly objects. He accused the civil
53 Dubois 1818, ix-x.

54 On that point, opinions vary. According to St Clair 1988, 255, Lord Elgin was
reported to have bought the metope at a customs sale in 1806. Then, he may
have proposed to Choiseul-Gouffier to return the sculpture if the latter officially
asked for it. The same author (273) considers that Choiseul-Gouffiers offspring
published a description of the collection full of lies and accusations against Lord
Elgin; the comte would never have allowed it.
55 Dubois 1818, x.
56 Ibid., xi.
57 Gallo 1999, 186 and note 50.
35
servant of taxing memories of the Greek Fine Arts.58 He equally

endeavoured to enrich his collection by renewing his mass acquisitions. As
early as 1814, he asked the Chevalier de Clerambault who had offered him
some archaeological objects, to buy on his behalf other antiquities,
statues, bas-reliefs, inscriptions or sought-after verde antico and porphyry
marbles.59 He also enriched his collection with gifts from Dubois, his
faithful collaborator, who sent him a number of marble items discovered
in the Trojan plain during a trip under the kings protection.60 Finally,
the partially reconstituted, immense and precious collection was to find an
appropriate setting: the former Marbeuf Mansion.
The Choiseul-Gouffier Mansion:

a Sanctuary for Greek Art
Perhaps as early as 1806, Choiseul-Gouffier hired Jacques-Guillaume
Legrand, his collaborator, and also one of the greatest architects and
theoreticians of his time, to reorganise the former Marbeuf mansion,
situated at the far end of the Champs-Elyses.61 The form and structure of
the mansion fulfilled Choiseul-Gouffiers Hellenistic dream as it aimed at
recreating nothing less than the Erechtheion! In a letter dated July 1806,
Choiseul-Gouffier who wished for reconciliation with Fauvel, hoped to
make him come back to Paris and take care of his collection. He wrote to
him: You will believe yourself in Athens, and lodging in the Erechtheian
temple []; you will enjoy seeing again the objects from Athens in my
beautiful garden.62
Legrand mentioned the re-creation in his 1806 Collection des chefs
duvre de lArchitecture: It is hoped to see the Erechtheion soon restored
to its original splendour at the Choiseul villa. M. de Choiseul-Gouffier, the
58 Nat. arch., T 153/160; letter from Choiseul-Gouffier to the General Customs
Director, 4 January 1816.
59 Nat. arch., T 153/160, fol. 105; letter from Choiseul-Gouffier, Paris, 20 October
1814. A note added at the end of the letter explained what he was looking for: Je
fais une collection dej assez nombreuse dinscriptions grecques, que je compte
publier. Les paysans en dtruisent tous les jours pour construire leurs maisons; il
vous serait peut tre possible den dcouvrir par le moyen des censeurs, qui vont
dans les villages acheter des cotons et des peaux de livres. Les plus prcieuses
sont celles qui ont plusieurs lignes.
60 Dubois 1818, xiii.
61 Szambien 1988.
62 BnF, ms Fr 22873, fol.193; letter from Choiseul-Gouffier to Fauvel, Paris, 13
July 1806.
36
Chapter Two
present owner, commissioned life-size casts of those beautiful statues in

Athens. They will decorate the entrance hall where he will unite the
models and precious fragments he collected with the help of many artists,
Messieurs Cassas, Fauvel, Foucherot etc63 It is indeed highly probable
that Choiseul-Gouffier used the casts he had commissioned from Fauvel in
Athens, as early as 1786.64 This is partly confirmed by a letter from
Choiseul to Dufourny.65
In July 1809 works on the peristyle and the caryatids are almost
over.66 And yet, the mansion was completed only in 1812. In the
foreword of the Choiseul-Gouffier collection catalogue (1818), Dubois
mentioned the place in which comte de Choiseul wished to house his
collection: It is a magnificent edifice; the faades are reminiscent of some
monuments in Athens and Palmyra; its interior is decorated with the best
taste, and will properly house many objects acquired and conserved with
great difficulties.67 A note written by Dubois detailed the decorations:
The two Eastern faades imitate the Erechtheion and Pandroseion in
Athens; the Northern one is modelled on one of Palmyras porticoes. On
the central part of the Erechtheion pediment, one can read the following
Greek inscription in golden letters To the daughters of Mnemosyne, to the
oblivion of pain.68
Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier did not see the commission of his beloved

museum realised: he died on 13 June 1817 while he was taking the waters
at Aix-la-Chapelle.
The Collections: the museum of a scholar,

the cabinet of a curioso (Emeric-David)
After Choiseul-Gouffiers death in 1817, his heirs showed no interest in
the collection and decided to sell it. L.J.J. Dubois wrote the catalogue.69
63 J.G. Legrand 1806, no 17, 95-6.
64 Szambien 1988, 24.
65 Nat. arch., 138 AP 232, letter from Choiseul-Gouffier to Dufourny, 22 July
1804, quoted in Szambien1988, 138, document number x.
66 Nat. arch., T 153/161-162: Rapport concernant les dpenses faites depuis le 10
au 22 juillet courant pour la continuation des constructions qui se font dans le
jardin de M. le Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier.
67 Dubois 1818, xi.
68 Ibid., xiii, note 1.
69 Dubois specialised in writing collection catalogues, see Lissarague 1992, 227-8
and note 22.
37
His foreword emphasised that it only represented part of the collection

constituted with such difficulties and added that we have sought to give
as fair an idea of what is left as we could.70 The catalogue of Egyptian,
Greek, Roman, and Celtic antiquities numbered 496 items, of which 240
antiquities.
Emeric-Davids Histoire de la sculpture antique devoted an important
entry to the Choiseul-Gouffier collection, describing it as the museum of
a scholar and the cabinet of a curioso altogether.71 Among the most
interesting pieces in the collection, the author mentioned in the sculpture
section a standing draped female figure excavated on Santorini by
Fauvel (the Louvres Urania) 72 and a life-size statue of a standing naked
youth, probably an athlete.73 This latter may be the so-called ChoiseulGouffier Apollo, today in the British Museum. As far as antiquities were
concerned, Duboiss catalogue offered telling confirmation of ChoiseulGouffiers taste. The most important section, i.e. the inscriptions, included
53 entries. Dubois emphasised the singularity of the collection:
It is worth noticing that this collection bears little resemblance to the
majority of individual cabinet collections in which the carefully restored
antiquities follow a set system of classification. These marbles, however,
are gathered together regardless of their subjects and they almost all show
signs of decay. Are they not worth a great deal since they provide us with
models of early, perfect and decaying phases of art? The scholar will find
information on religion and the relations between several Greek peoples.
The philologist will be able to use them to research the different dialects
and grammatical forms of an immortal language that still needs comment
and interpretation.74
This text highlights the originality of Choiseul-Gouffiers collection. As

remains of a prestigious history, the items were destined for the scholar
more than the aesthete. In that respect, these exceptional pieces deserved
to remain in France at a time when the collection of the new museum was
being constituted. Indeed, a pious hope ended Duboiss presentation:
these monuments should stay with us forever, as national honour seems to
suggest. Similar collections successively transported to England and kept
in public buildings since then, have preserved the names of their first
70 Dubois, 1818, xiv.
71 Emeric-David 1853, 253.
72 Dubois 1818, 253.
73 Ibid.,15, no 40.
74 Dubois 1818, xv-xvi.
38
Chapter Two
owners up to now. Would it not be possible to renew that worthy
distinction, not devoid of precedents in France? May the Choiseul marbles,
associated with Nointels, always remind our grateful memories of those
illustrious travellers names. Similar careers brought them to the same
places and they both used their intelligence and fate for the common good,
75
which they turned into the heritage of Literature and the Arts.
Unfortunately, Duboiss passionate plea had no influence. Things turned

out differently and the war over the Choiseul marbles raged violently
indeed. This dispersal aroused a keen interest in French amateurs, a keener
interest among the Bavarian kings agents and most of all it attracted
English collectors, whose presence worried the French authorities.76
Epilogue: the Collections Dispersal

In August 1818, the sale of the collection prompted a debate between
scholars and representatives of the national institutions: was it better to
keep in France the entire collection or only the best pieces? Two experts
were appointed to give their advice: Dacier, permanent secretary of the
Academy of Inscriptions and Quatremre de Quincy, permanent secretary
of the Academy of Fine Arts. They disagreed: the former strongly
advocated the block acquisition by mutual agreement of the Choiseul
collection He concluded his detailed report with these words:
For artists who can never be given too many models of good taste and fine
manner, for antique lovers particularly concerned with historical monuments,
it is therefore essential to collect and compare the different kinds of merits
and instructions they are looking for in these objects.77
For Quatremre de Quincy, spokesman of the Royal Academy of Fine

Arts, who bravely denounced the spoliation implemented during the
Directory, it was
necessary to draw a sharp distinction between the ruins of Athens and
antique and modern Roman ruins and art objects. The latter are preserved
75 Ibid.
76 Nat. arch., F 21/571, Louvre museum file, III, 1816-1817, Document 1,
undated, unsigned: On compte beaucoup sur les achats faire pour le Muse,
beaucoup danglais se prsentent aussi pour acheter [We heavily rely on museum
acquisitions; a lot of English people also showed up at the sale.]
77 Nat. arch., F 21/571. Louvre museum file, III, 1816-1827; letter from Dacier to
the Minister, Paris, 30 June 1818.
39
and conserved, as they are watched by crowds of European travellers. The

ruins in Athens are decaying because they are neglected by the Government
and sometimes by partial removals due to zealous amateurs. 78
Thus it was important that the Government selects the greatest number of
objects and antiquities M. le Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier had acquired
during his trips. He was in favour of selection and detailed his own as
well as the official position: The Academy will ask the Government to
acquire only the items directly connected to the study of the Fine Arts: it
will be up to another Academy to ask the same favour for everything in
the collection that can encourage erudition and scholarship.79
The sale took place in the Choiseul-Gouffier mansion. It started on 17
August 1818 and went on until after 22 August. Curiously enough, the sale
was seldom mentioned in the newspapers.80 Whereas the French
government hesitated about what to do, its main rival, i.e. the British
Museum curators and trustees, wanted the most prestigious pieces such as
the Parthenon metope81 and the Choiseul marble.82 The Louvre eventually
won the war to keep the Greek monuments in France. It managed to get
all the inscribed monuments from M. le Comte de Choiseul-Gouffiers
Cabinet, except for four or five uninteresting items as far as art or
palaeography are concerned.83 After a lively bidding competition with the
British Museum, the Louvre managed to keep the masterpiece of the
collection: the Parthenon metope. The newspaper Moniteur Universel
hailed the event on 22 August 1818:
The sale of M. de Choiseul-Gouffiers cabinet, which started a few days
ago, has continued today. Important objects such as the Phidias metope and
the so-called Choiseul marble were yet to be sold. It was greatly feared that
the English, who already have fifteen Phidias metopes in their possession,
78 Quatremre de Quincy 1836, x, declared himself not to be shocked by the
removal of the Parthenon marbles, which he saw in London in June 1818. In the
case of Greece, he considered that the objects had to be removed for their own
safety, in contrast to the situation in Italy, where he considered the removal of
antiquities as looting.
79 Nat. arch., F. 21/571; letter dated 29 June 1818.
80 However, I have not conducted extensive research on that point. It would be
interesting to study the reports in English newspapers in that respect.
81 Inv. Ma 736; Hamiaux 1992, 135, n. 127. It is the tenth metope on the south
side of the Parthenon.
82 Ibid., 140, n. 132, Inv. Ma 831.
83 Nat. Arch., F. 21/ 571; letter from Dacier to the comte de Forbin, 26 August
1818.
40
Chapter Two
might want to buy the sixteenth regardless of its price, thus taking it away
from France. To those who feared this, we can now say that the
Government had allocated funds to a specially created commission, which
acquired the Metope for FF26,500. The Choiseul marble has also been
acquired for FF6,000. Thus, thanks to the care of an art protecting
84
Government, these two precious items will remain in France.
These two major pieces joined the confiscated slab of the Ergastines and
the fragment of the Parthenon frieze,85 also in the Louvre.
The Choiseul-Gouffier collection was certainly dispersed yet its
initiators true claim to glory was to allow one of the Parthenon metopes to
enter the national collections. In spite of himself, the former ambassador
made his predecessor Nointels dream come true, i.e. to see Greek art
treasures in His Majestys cabinets or galleries.86
84 Le Moniteur universel reported on this event on Saturday 22 August 1818 (999)

while The Journal de Paris also related the same information in a more succinct
way.
85 Inv. Ma 738; Hamiaux 1992, 134, n 126.
86 Omont 1902, 194.
CHAPTER THREE
COMPARING EAST AND WEST:
ENRICO CERNUSCHIS COLLECTIONS
OF ART RECONSIDERED
SILVIA DAVOLI
Enrico Cernuschi (1821-1896) was an extraordinary man (Fig. 10). A

native of Milan, Cernuschi took part in the Italian revolutions of 1848.1
Exiled to France in 1852 for his republican convictions, he became a
wealthy and well-known banker in Paris and one of the founders of the
Bank Paribas.2 Cernuschi was an important economist, inspired by the
Saint-Simonian school of economic thought; during his lifetime he was
invited repeatedly by the English and the American governments to
explain his theories about bimetallism.3
In 1871, Cernuschi risked his life, fighting against the Prussian
occupation of Paris. In the same year, he decided to embark upon a long
trip to the Far East with his friend Thodore Duret, in an attempt to escape
from the violence in Paris.4 Their expedition lasted for more than a year,
taking them throughout Asia: first to Japan, then to China, Mongolia,
I would like to thank the editors of this volume as well as Dr. Christine Guth for
the precious advice generously shared with me and the staff of the Museo del
Risorgimento, Milan for their kind permission to use their image.
1 On Cernuschis biography Leti 1936; Della Peruta 1979, xxiii, 781-8; Maucuer,
1998; Bognetti and Moioli 2004 and Davoli 2008.
2 Bognetti and Moioli 2004, 48 and 80.
3 Monetary standard or system based upon the use of two metals, traditionally gold
and silver, rather than one (monometallism). For a general review of Cernuschis
writings on bimetallism: Bognetti and Moioli, 2004, 105-26.
4 Thodore Duret (1838-1927) was an art critic, writer, collector and dealer. For
more information on Duret, see Schigemi 1988.
42
Chapter Three
Indonesia, and India.5 Cernuschi began collecting in Yokohama, where he

acquired the typical tourist bric--brac; then on reaching Yedo (the former
name of Japans capital, Tokyo), he began more systematically to collect
bronzes.
Figure 10: Enrico Cernuschi photographic portrait Walery, 1876 (photo

Archivio Museo del Risorgimento, Milan).
5.The trip lasted from September 1871 to January 1873.
Comparing East and West: Enrico Cernuschi (1821-1986)
43
It was a favourable time to purchase works of art in Japan. The Meiji

Restoration had caused a major religious shift by legally abolishing the
syncretism between Buddhism and Shinto and declaring the latter the
national religion. Many temples were converted or demolished, and a
number of Buddhist statues taken down, abandoned or destroyed.6
Cernuschi continued his collecting activities in China, where the art
market was much more competitive and structured.7 He did not purchase
any works of art in India.
On Cernuschis return to Paris, his first step was to exhibit his
treasures in the Palais de lIndustrie on the Champs Elyses on the
occasion of the first Congrs International des Orientalistes. Secondly, he
bought some land in a fashionable area on the edge of the Parc Monceau,
where his museum would later be built. Finally, Cernuschi purchased the
entire collection assembled before 1870 by Michele Cavaleri, a lawyer
from Milan and an old friend of his.8 The Cavaleri collection contained
works of decorative art and many Renaissance paintings, including
masterpieces by Bernardino Luini, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Vincenzo Foppa
and Bergognone, along with Flemish and Italian primitives. The collection
also included several archaeological artefacts from Europe, Asia and South
America, a vast library of Renaissance manuscripts, as well as a number of
cuttings from illuminated manuscripts. In total, the Cavaleri collection
amounted to more than 20,000 items.9
In 1873 Cernuschi commissioned the architect Bowens Van der Boijen
to build his htel particulier.10 Following his employers instructions
very closely, Van der Boijen created a relatively austere building, a space
suitable for displaying Cernuschis art collections as well as for welcoming
the public. Shortly after the building work was completed in 1875, it
became possible to visit the collections by appointment.
Today, Cernuschis museum is exclusively dedicated to Asian art. The
Italian banker bequeathed only his Asian art collection and htel to the
Ville de Paris in 1882.11 The former Cavaleri collection was dispersed at
6 On this phase of Japanese history and artistic heritage see: Yo Shio Ab 19801989, III, 855-9; and Conant 1984, 113-46.
7 Duret 1874, 121-2.
8 Michele Cavaleri (1813-1890) was a lawyer from Milan and a member of the
Italian Parliament (1861-1876). Cernuschi paid 300,000 lire for the Cavaleri
collection; see Leti 1936, 268.
9 On the Cavaleri collection see Natale and Mottola Molfino 1982-83, 246-50;
Morandotti 2008, xxxiii and 285; Davoli 2011, 66-78.
10 Bauduin 1984.
11 Cernuschis will, dated 23 January 1893, Paris, Centre Historique des Archives
44
Chapter Three
auction and through private sales after Cernuschis death.12 The only
exceptions were the collection of Peruvian pottery bequeathed by
Cernuschi in 1874 to the Socit dtudes Amricaines in Nancy and the
collection of 600 specimens of marbres antiques de couleur bequeathed
to the cole des Beaux-arts in 1890.13
The Collection
Theodore Durets travel journal Voyage en Asie, published in 1874, is
considered the most reliable account of the museums formation and
contents.14 However, this journal leaves much unexplained, and it is often
very difficult to match Durets descriptions with the collection put
together by Cernuschi. The difference in interests between the two
travelling companions becomes clearer if we look at their art collections
and preferences. During the trip, Thodore Duret collected only a few
Japanese engravings and he was unappreciative of Chinese culture and
arts.15 On the contrary, like other famous Parisian art critics, he saw
Japanese art and its aesthetic values as a template for the renovation of
French art, and in particular for his Impressionist friends.16
Unlike Duret, however, Cernuschi was chiefly attracted by Chinese
antiquities. These, he discovered while travelling, were more ancient than
Nationales, Fond Et/LIX 909.
12 Sales Catalogue by Galerie Georges Petit 1900.
13 For the Peruvian pottery bequeathed by Cernuschi to the Socit dtudes
Amricaines in Nancy, see Renauld 1880, 219; for the marble specimens
bequeathed to the cole des Beaux-arts, see: AJ-52-447.
14 Duret 1874.
15 In 1900, Duret bequeathed his collection of Japanese prints to the Bibliothque
Nationale, but it is difficult to determine which of these prints and printed books
were actually purchased in Japan, and which from the Parisian art market; see
Marquet 1997. Duret was also a collector of Impressionist art: as is attested by the
sales catalogue Hotel Drouot, 1928.
16 Duretalong with the first champions of the Japonisme movement such as
Burty, Astruc, Champfleury, Zola etc.considered Japan a paradise lost, an
uncorrupted place where the relationship between man and nature had been
preserved unaltered for many centuries, in opposition to the repugnant artificiality
and dehumanisation prompted by Western capitalism. Therefore, some aesthetic
principles embodied by Japanese art such as asymmetry, as well as the lack of
distinction between decorative and liberal arts etc. appeared particularly attractive
to Duret and to support his ideas for a renewal of the French art system; see Duret
1885 and Bouillon 1990. Among the painters influenced by Durets ideas were
Manet and Whistler.
45
their Japanese counterparts: In China I saw beautiful bronzes, better then

in Japan, and I understood that all I had bought up until then in Japan was
less valuable.17 He was more interested in decorative works than in the
graphic arts. In particular, the objects used in ancestral rituals, both religious
and domestic, fascinated him. He acquired some 4,000 works of art,
including an exceptional set of ancient Chinese bronzes (dating from the
fifteenth century BC to the third century AD), which came to constitute the
core of his collection. In Japan he had purchased many bronzes (including
vases, incense burners and Buddha statues), most of which dated from the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In his selection of Chinese artefacts,
Cernuschi sought to illustrate a history of the Chinese art of bronze; in his
collection of Japanese bronzes, however, his emphasis lay on gathering a
diversity of shapes rather than a chronological range of specimens.
Apart from the bronzes, Cernuschi purchased (to a lesser extent)
Chinese and Japanese ceramics.18 During the trip, he also acquired some
albums of photographs of important monuments of Japan, Ceylon and
India taken by famous photographers such as Felice Beato.19 Following his
return to Paris, Cernuschi did not buy a single Impressionist painting,
despite being good friends with collectors of Impressionist art.20
Cernuschis Motives
A careful investigation of Enrico Cernuschis cultural background allows
us to reconstruct the motives underpinning his activity as collector.
Cernuschis interest in archaeology dated back to his travels to North
17 En Chine je vis des bronzes tellement plus beaux que je compris que tous ceux
que javais achets jusqualors au Japon navaient ct pas beaucoup de valeur,
Cernuschi (Le Moniteur Universel, Dec. 1886) in Maucuer 1998, 32.
18 In 1875, in the attempt to complete his own collection of ceramics, Cernuschi
acquired the collection of Japanese ceramics gathered by Ferdinando Meazza, a
silkworm breeder from Milan.
19 Felice Beato (1832-1909), was an ItaloBritish photographer.
20 Particularly towards the end of his life, Cernuschi was an intimate friend of
some of the most famous collectors of Impressionist art in France, including the
editor Charpentier, Charles Ephrussi, Charles Deudon and Cahen DAnvers,
among others. It appears to be the case that Renoir and Manet painted portraits of
Cernuschis Japanese dog Tama, but these works are usually understood to have
been commissioned by Duret in order to help his Impressionist friends. Moreover,
if Durets initiative can be substantiated for Manets portrait (today in the
collection of by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon), some doubts persist as to Renoirs
(today in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown,
Massachusetts); on this matter, see Duret, 1924, 61.
46
Chapter Three
Africa in the 1860s, during which he had purchased some Carthaginian

archaeological artefacts.21 He also benefited from his close friendship with
Hortense Cornu, foster-sister of Napoleon III and a well-known writer on
the fine arts.22 Cornu was the chief supporter of Napoleon IIIs purchase of
part of the Campana collection, and was the only woman to be admitted to
the Acadmie des Inscriptions.23 Thanks to her links with Napoleon III,
Cornu was also responsible for promoting many archaeological
expeditions in the Middle East.24 Her role in the archaeological discoveries
made during the Third French Empire has largely been overlooked in the
literature, only recently becoming the object of scholarly research.25
Cernuschi attended Cornus Thursday salons on a regular basis, along
with the novelist Gustave Flaubert and the archaeologist and linguist
Ernest Renan.
More significantly, it is possible to connect important features of
Cernuschis museum with philosophical and political ideas originating in
Lombardy during the Risorgimento. I refer specifically here to Carlo
Cattaneo and Giuseppe Ferrari, two Italian philosophers, historians and
patriots and Cernuschis lifelong friends and political companions during
the Risorgimento.26 Both Cattaneo and Ferrari were well known
21 In 1861, for example, Cernuschi brought back an inscription dedicated to the
Carthaginian goddess Rabat Tanit, the goddess of the moon, from one of his trips
to North Africa. Later, in 1863, Renan organised a conference at the Acadmie des
Inscriptions on the subject of this particular inscription. It may be merely
coincidence, but Salammb, the heroine of Flauberts eponymous archaeological
novel, was also a priestess of Rabat Tanit. Moreover, one of Flauberts
collaborators and best friends, Jules Duplan, was Cernuschis personal assistant
and fellow traveller during the 1860s, when Flaubert was writing his novel. See the
letters Cernuschi exchanged with Gustave Flaubert and Gaston Maspero (Ms Lov.
H 1361, fol. 298; Ms 4010, fol. 131, Bibliothque de lInstitut de France). See also,
Reinach 1863, 74.
22 Albin 1846 and 1848.
23 For more information on the Collection Campana, see Sarti 2001.
24 Gasnier 1994.
25 Hortense Lacroix Cornu (1809-1875), foster-sister of Napoleon III, was also a
translator of Goethe. Her salon was an intellectual and cultural gathering-place in
mid-nineteenth-century Paris. See Reinach 1905; Emerit 1937; Gasnier 1994.
More recently, Cornus role in the building of the Muse des antiquits nationales
de Saint-Germain-en-Laye has been investigated, Effros 2012, 25-43.
26 Ferrari (1810-1876) was also a member of the Italian Parliament from 1860 to
1876. For a general overview of Carlo Cattaneos (1801-1869) activity, see Sestan
1979, XXII, 422-441. On Giuseppe Ferrari, see Della Peruta 1996, XLVI 609-15.
For the correspondence between Cattaneo and Cernuschi see Caddeo 1949-1956,
IV. The correspondence between Ferrari and Cernuschi is held at the Civiche
47
interpreters of the eighteenth-century philosopher Giambattista Vico, and

were among the founders of comparative linguistics and anthropological
study in Italy.27 Ferrari edited Vicos writings in the text Opere di
Giambattista Vico ordinate ed illustrate collanalisi storica della mente di
Vico in relazione alla scienza della civilt,28 while Cattaneo published a
few seminal articles on Vico.29
Giambattista Vico and the Civilisations of the Far East

Giovanni Battista (Giambattista) Vico (1668-1744) was an Italian jurist,
philosopher and historian and Professor of Rhetoric at the University of
Naples. Vico was relatively unknown among his contemporaries, but his
views found a wider audience from the nineteenth century onwards,
especially in France and Italy, where he came to be considered one of the
fathers of the philosophy of history.30 Vico's major work was I Principi di
una scienza nuova d'intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, first
published in 1725.
Vico argued that, having ourselves created History, we can understand
its vicissitudes more fully than those of nature. Vicos innovation was to
combine philosophy and philology in order to illuminate the genesis of
social organisation. He believed that the philological study of languages,
law, institutions, myths and religions is as important for our understanding
of earlier societies as it is for those contemporary with our own.
Cernuschi put the Philosophy of History at the centre of his own
cultural and scientific production. He had studied this subject in Milan,
under the tutorship of his companions Cattaneo and Ferrari. Despite their
admiration for Vico, Cattaneo and Ferrari criticised his work on two
counts: firstly, for the narrowness of his cyclical theory of history, which
did not take into account the concept of progress; and secondly, for
considering only the Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian traditions in his
studies of the origins of the civilised world.
Raccolte Storiche di Milanomuseo del Risorgimento, in the Fondo Ferrari and
Fondo Cernuschi.
27 Goddard, Bergin and Fisch 1948.
28 Ferrari1835-1837, 1835 and 1839.
29 Cattaneo 1835 and 1839.
30 On Vicos philosophical revival in Lombardy during the nineteenth century,
see: Martirano 2001; Focher 1986, 93-107 and Puccini 1991, 121-9. French and
Italian interpretations of his work varied considerably. For an overview of the
French and Italian interpretations of Vicos theories see: Ragghianti 2000, 297-313
and dAmato, 1977.
48
Chapter Three
Cattaneo and Ferrari thus decided to complete Vicos comparative

studies of civilisation by analysing the civilisations he had not studied, in
particular those of the Far East. China held a privileged place in their
studies for its refined culture and the treasures of its ancient past. The
evolution of comparative linguistics had a special relevance for their
methodology.31 Cattaneo wrote several essays and articles about India,
China, Japan and the Middle East,32 largely inspired by the methodology
of comparative linguistics. The study of comparative linguistics during the
first half of the nineteenth century had pointed towards a new, dynamic
form of ancient history comprising migration, exchange, domination and
slavery, whose traces survived in subsequent cultures. The comparative
approach also seemed appropriate for the study of other ancient tools of
human communication and exchange, such as coins, ancient religious
monuments and works of art intended as diplomatic gifts.
In 1868 Ferrari published his book LEurope et la Chine, in which he
attempted to demonstrate the contemporaneous existence of historical
similarities in very distant countries: he compared, for example, the Ming
Dynasty with the Italian Renaissance, as well as the rise of the Manchus
with the German Reformation, and the Taiping Rebellion with the French
Revolution.33 Cernuschi kept his friends writings on these subjects in his
scientific library.
Giuseppe Ferrari had been responsible for proposing and supporting
the sale of the Cavaleri collection to Enrico Cernuschi. Michele Cavaleri
was himself one of Cattaneos pupils, and an admirer of Vicos theories of
the philosophy of history.34 Cavaleri had hoped to bequeath his entire
collection to the municipality of Milan in order to create a dedicated public
museum.35 In 1873, however, the municipality refused to accept the
collection due to a lack of financial resources. Cavaleri, who was heavily
in debt, instead sold it to Cernuschi.
31 For instance, Cattaneo wrote essays on the birth of language in light of the
polygenetic theory of the origin of the human race. Eventually, his linguistic
theories proved particularly important for the formation of modern Italian. On
Carlo Cattaneos linguistic theories see: Cattaneo 1846, 115-54 and Timpanaro
1969, 229-83. Meanwhile, Ferrari wrote an essay about popular Italian lyrics; see
Ferrari 1852. Ferrari was also interested in the linguistic history of ancient
Chinese. His notes on this subject are held at the Museo del Risorgimentos
Archive in Milan (Amr), fondo Giuseppe Ferrari.
32 For a complete review of the numerous articles written by Cattaneo see Puccini
1988, 83-6.
33 Ferrari 1868.
34 Caddeo 1949-1956, III, 396.
35 Cavaleri 1875-1883.
49
According to one source, Michele Cavaleri attributed the inspiration

for the set-up of his museum to Vicos philosophical theories. He
declared that I wanted to present here the symbols of the history of the
human family and its development. Here is the meaning, the ideology of
my collection. He went on to complain about the small number of Asian
artefacts in his collection, and concluded his speech with an affirmation of
the necessity of studying China and the many Asian populations: studies
that were not undertaken by Vico, who actually left his work on the
origins of the first civilisations unfinished.36 Giuseppe Ferrari published
an article about the Cavaleri museum in the Gazzetta di Milano in 1871.
He wrote: In every age thought is expressed through the symbols of Art.
In a similar way thought is expressed by laws in politics, by reason in
Philosophy and faith in Religion.37 Another article stresses the connection
between the layout of the Cavaleri museum and the theories expounded in
Ferraris book La Chine et lEurope. It is now clear why Ferrari suggested
that Cavaleri sell his collection to Cernuschi. Firstly, Cernuschi was a
friend of Cavaleris. They lived together in Milan, sharing the same
philosophical opinions and similar views on various issues. Ferrari could
be certain, therefore, that Cernuschi would fully understand the collection
formed by Cavaleri, and would ensure that it remained intact. Secondly,
Cavaleris collection consisted primarily of Western art, while Cernuschis
collection comprised only Asian art. In Ferraris view, therefore,
Cernuschis purchase of the Cavaleri collection was ultimately going to
facilitate the comparative study of the respective artistic productions of
East and West.38
The Display
The works of art in Cernuschis htel particulier were exhibited in an
architectural context, boasting a large number of symbols. The ground
floor, for example, is decorated with Greek crosses, while Indian swastikas
were originally printed on the wallpaper of the first floor. The
topographical names of the cities Cernuschi had visited during his travels
are listed in several stucco scrolls along the wall of the Great Buddha
36 Mazzoleni 1870, 14. Original text: [] e della necessit degli studi intorno
alla China e le diverse popolazioni dellAsia, studi che innavertiti dal Vico
lasciarono incompleta lopera sua sulle origini e sui fattori delle varie civilt.
37 Ferrari 1871, 3.
38 See letter dated Paris, 1873 from Giuseppe Ferrari to Cesare Correnti (18151888), the Italian Minister of Education in 1867 and 1869, in Amr Milano,
Archivio Correnti, cart. 11.
50
Chapter Three
Room. Finally, portraits of Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci decorate the

main entrance of the palazzo. The museum and its contentsthe richness
of the display and the evocation of ancient civilisationsgave concrete
visual form to Cernuschis historical, cultural and aesthetic ideas.
In an article written in 1889, the journalist Emile Deschanel described
the layout of the Cernuschi museum as follows:
his palazzo is a true museum: the entrance hall, which serves as the
principal gallery, is a Buddhist pagoda, where the Buddha reigns on his
lotus flower. There are also Egyptian galleries with hieroglyphs and
mummies, and Italian galleries with paintings, triptychs and boxes. It is a
pantheon of all beliefs.39
In a service document produced in 1874 for Cernuschis Htel

Particulierthat is, a summary of the buildings maintenance coststhe
works displayed inside the htel are recorded on a room-by-room basis.
Each room is named after its contents.40 (Fig. 11) A careful study of the
document reveals that the Cavaleri collection was placed on the ground
floor of the house. There was also a Cluny room, which is likely to have
housed Renaissance cassoni and carved wooden sculptures. Next door was
a Ferrari room, where the canvas La nascita della Vergine by
Gaudenzio Ferrari was placed.41 Also adjacent to the Cluny room was a
room dedicated to the display of primitives and a room for tapestries. We
know from another source that eight frescoes by Bernardino Luini,
representing the story of Procris and Cephalus, were kept in the
vestibule.42 A few Etruscan vases, originally part of the Cavaleri
collection, were displayed in the entrance hall of Cernuschis Htel
Particulier. Following the inventory, we find the items brought back by
Cernuschi from Asia, arranged in the Great Buddha Room on the first
floor. This was an immense gallery (Fig, 12) housing a legendary giant
39 Son palais est un vrai muse; le hall, qui sert de principal salon, est une pagode
bouddhiste, o rgne le Bouddha sur sa fleur de lotus. Il y a aussi des salles
gyptiennes, avec des hiroglyphes et des momies, des salles italiennes avec des
tableaux, des triptyques et des chsses. C'est le panthon de toutes les croyances.
See Deschanel, 1889.
40 Sommaire Partiel du Memoire n 52, Travaux de peinture, 1874dcembre
1875, Cernuschis museum archive.
41 Birth of the Virgin, Gaudenzio Ferrari (1471-1546), oil on panel, 186 x 132cm,
Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera.
42 Bernardino Luinis Fresco Cycle (9 panels in total) telling the story of Procris
and Cephalus, Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington
DC, Accession n. 1943.4.
51
statue of Buddha from the abandoned temple of Meguro in Japan.43 This

statue was surrounded in a circular arrangement by hundreds of other
statues and vases set out on wooden shelves: Chinese examples on one
side, Japanese on the other.
During the Congrs des Orientalistes, Adrien de Longprier,44 the
keeper of antiquities and sculpture at the Louvre Museum, gave a lecture
entitled Quelques objets de lantiquit japonaise et chinoise.45 This
lecture is of particular relevance to the present study, as it was inspired by
the exhibition of Cernuschis collections at the Palais de lIndustrie.
Cernuschis collections and display offered a rough template for the issues
and questions discussed by Longprier in his lecture. His analysis began
with the assumption that very little was known about the chronology and
geographical provenance of Japanese works of art. Even the rare
inscriptions to be found on the objects were not particularly enlightening
as to their origins. The situation in respect of Chinese art was different,
since rather more was known about it at this time. Longprier shed light
on the importance of antique Chinese bronzes through a comparison with
Egyptian archaeological findings, which suggested that metals were rarely,
if ever, used in ancient Egypt. Longprier discussed the later emergence of
metallurgy in Japan than in China, but also pointed out its relatively rapid
development in Japan in terms of both quality and quantity. He showed
how the study of art and art history could illuminate the cultural exchange
between China, Japan and the countries of the West, among others. It
seems reasonable to assume that Cernuschis decision to display his
artefacts, sorting them by shape, size and provenance, arose from the fact
that, at the time, it was impossible to order Japanese art chronologically.
Furthermore, this arrangement made it possible to establish, at least at first
sight, a formal comparison between the two main groups of bronzes.
Longprier emphasised the importance of ancient texts as the main
grounding for Japanese and Chinese archaeological study. In China,
Cernuschis literary purchases were limited to specialised texts containing
43 The history of the purchase of the giant Buddha statue and its removal is
described in Duret, 1873, 21-2. For a detailed description of the episode see Inaga
1998, 79.
44 Henry-Adrien Prvost de Longprier (1816-1882), was a numismatist and
archaeologist. See Caubet 2010; http://www.inha.fr/spip.php?article3167. It is
interesting to note that in 1872 Giuseppe Ferrari consulted Longprier on
Cavaleris behalf concerning the provenance and authenticity of certain mediaeval
items belonging to the Cavaleri collection.
45 Congrs International des Orientalistes 1874, I, 97-110.
52
Chapter Three
Figure 11: First page of the Sommaire Partiel du Memoire n 52, Travaux de
peinture, 1874dcembre 1875, Archive Muse Cernuschi, Paris (photo: Silvia
Davoli).
53
Figure 12: View of the Great Gallery at the Muse Cernuschi, Paris (photo: from
LIllustration 17 April 1897).
illustrations of bronze vases, as for example the Bogutulu and the

Xiqinggujian.46 Cernuschi also engaged Motoyoshi Saizan, lecturer at the
cole spciale des langues orientales vivantes, to translate the inscriptions
engraved on nine of his works of art. While in Italy, following Ferraris
advice, Cernuschi contacted Alfonso Andreozzi, a sinologist from
Florence and himself a pupil of Stanislas Julien.47 In Japan, Cernuschi
like von Sieboldpurchased an ethnographic key work on the subject
of the Anu people (Sangoku tsran zusetsu, 1787), along with other texts
that offered evidence of the cultural exchange between Japan and other
countries in recent centuries. One example is the Km zatsuwa (1787),
which analysed Dutch habits and customs from a Japanese perspective.48 It
46 Bugutulu, catalogue of the bronzes of the Imperial collection written during the
Xuanhe age (1119-1123); Xiqinggujian is a 40-volume catalogue of Chinese
bronzes in the collection of the Qianlong Emperor. It was compiled during the
period 1749 to 1755.
47 In the matter of old Chinese writings, both Cavaleri and Cernuschi deferred to
Andreozzi (1821-1894), a lawyer from Florence and one of the first sinologists in
Italy.
48 Other books purchased by Cernuschi were: Hayashi Shihei, Sangoku tsran
54
Chapter Three
Figure 13: Kinrande Ewer, China, sixteenth century, Paris, Muse Cernuschi
(photo and Muse Cernuschi/Roger-Viollet).
is worth noting that, as part of this effort to provide historical bases for the
study of Japanese art and culture, Cernuschi translated for his friend
Philippe Burty the Relatione della venuta degli Ambasciatori Giaponesi a
Roma sino alla partita di Lisbona, Guido Gualtieri (1586).49
zusetsu (Painting of the three countries) 1787, Paris, Muse Cernuschi,

M.C.4760; Morishima Chry, Km zatsuwa (Essay on the Europeans), 4 vols.
(1, 2, 3 and 5), Muse Cernuschi, M.C. 4737.
49 Burty 1884-1885, V, 393.
55
Finally, Longprier highlighted the importance of artistic exchange

between distant civilisations, citing the story of an Iranian ewer found in a
pagoda in Japan. Longprier believed that this ewer had probably arrived
in Japan via Chinaperhaps as a gift, or brought by a Buddhist
monkand had in turn reached China thanks to one of the many military
or peace-time encounters between China and Persia. Among the ceramics
acquired by Cernuschi, several examples illustrate this reciprocal
exchange, the mutual blend of styles described by Longprier: most
notably a few ewers in a Persian shape (Fig. 13), but also more recent
objects whose shapes showed the effect of contact between East and West.
Ornaments as the First Visual Vocabulary

Attention to the theories of Giambattista Vico offers further insight into
Cernuschis vision of art. Vicos ideas have been very important for
scholars of modern aesthetics, despite his failure to formulate a systematic
theory, and the fact that he was not primarily concerned with art. Vico was
one of the first philosophers to suggest that our perceptual faculties
actually form part of our basis for knowledge; they have their own
epistemological value.50 He claimed that aesthetics (which he termed
poetics) were not simply a medium to give pleasure or embellish truths,
but to articulate a vision of the world. For Vico, aesthetics were an
intrinsic part of the human process of knowledge acquisition based on our
perceptual faculties.51 Vico was also one of the first thinkers to suggest
concretely, although indirectly, that the visual arts are a gauge by which
to measure changing stages of civilisation.52 The impact of these
arguments was particularly important at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.
In his 1844 article entitled Collezione dornamenti (Collection of
ornaments), Cattaneo discussed the use of historical ornaments in modern
architecture and applied arts, clearly drawing on Vicos vision of art.53 In
this article, he provided a survey of the evolution of historical ornaments,
explaining that, in the past, such ornaments were not merely applied to
objects or architecture; they were in fact considered to be a fundamental
50 Benedetto Croce was a pioneer in determining the aesthetic implications of
Vicos philosophical thought; see Croce 1901, 126 and 453581.
51 For a synthetic overview of Vicos thought and its specific importance for
modern aesthetics, see Barasch 2000, II, 7-15.
52 Haskell 1993, 217-8.
53 Cattaneo 1840, fasc. XIV, 154-66.
56
Chapter Three
part of their structure. He then argued that ornaments were the first visual
vocabulary used by humans as a means of organising space.54 He
compared ornaments and artistic beauty with mathematics and music,
arguing for the universality of an artistic language. Cattaneos theoretical
considerations had a more practical and operative effect. Museums of
decorative art, in his view, were responsible for gathering artworks
representing all of the worlds ancient civilisations; not only from the
perspective of a history of civilisation, but also for a more concrete
twofold purpose: to spread a universal sense of beauty among future
generations of artists, architects and artisans, as well as the general public;
and to improve the contemporary processes of manufacturing art.55
Figure 14 a & b: Two polychrome ceramic medallions representing Leonardo da

Vinci and Aristotle which still preside over the main entrance of the Cernuschi
museum (photo: Silvia Davoli).
The enigmatic presence in Cernuschis museum of two polychrome

ceramic medallions representing Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinciwhich
still preside over the main entrance of the museum todayseems
consistent with this vision of art (Fig. 14 a & b). The connection between
54 Cattaneo wrote this article twelve years before the publication of Owen Jones
Grammar of Ornament (1856). In the same year (1844) Thomas Hopes A
Historical Essay on Architecture by the late T. Hope (1835, London, 2 vols.) was
translated into Italian.
55 Selvafolta 1990.
57
Aristotle, Vico and Leonardo da Vinci is relatively direct, because each of

these savants shared the belief that artistic creativity is based on imitation
and techne, and not upon a single notion of beauty; neither is it limited to
specific aesthetic categories. In Aristotelian terms, as well as in the
thinking of Leonardo and Vico, techne does not mean technological, but
rather belongs to the notion of poiesis (creation or production), which
reveals aletheia (the truth) along with episteme (knowledge or science).56
In a letter written to the art historian Eugene Mntz, Cernuschi argued
that the motive underlying his collection of Asian art and artefacts was to
show the complex history of Oriental bronzes and the technologies of their
production.57 This aesthetic motivation pushed Cernuschi to approach the
supporters of the Arts and Crafts movement, represented in France by the
Union Centrale des Beaux Arts Appliqus lIndustrie, whose ultimate
aim was to create a museum of decorative arts on the model of the South
Kensington museum in London. Their studies were based specifically on
the examination of the features of decorative objects, as well as the
materials and techniques used to produce them; the wider cultural context
of their production was only a secondary concern. The year 1873 saw the
beginning of Cernuschis friendship with Philippe Burty, one of the
founders of the Union Centrale des Beaux Arts Appliqus l'Industrie,
and a leading exponent of the Japonisme movement. By 1869, Burty had
created in embryonic form the first museum of Oriental art in Paris. In
1880, Cernuschi participated in the Muse rtrospectif du mtal exhibition
organised by the Union, which presented ancient specimens of metalwork
of both Eastern and Western origin, drawn from private French
collections. Furthermore, items from both Cernuschis Asian and Cavaleri
collections were represented in illustrated catalogues of the decorative
artsincluding Livres Les collections clbres d'uvres d'art, dessines
et graves d'aprs les originaux; Bapsts Muse rtrospectif du metal, and
Jacquemarts Histoire du Mobilieras well as in art-historical scholarship
such as Mntzs Renaissance en Italie et en France lpoque de Charles
VIII.58 Cernuschi also opened his house and his collections to contemporary
artists and artisans such as Gustave Moreau, the ceramicist Thodore
Deck, and Emile Reiber, head designer of the firm Christophle & Cie.59
56 Franzini 1987.
57 BNF, Mss, cte, fols. 169-170: lettre Eugne Mntz, Paris, 11 novembre
1890.
58 Livre 1880, vol.II, planche n. 34; Bapst 1880-1881, 4-6; Jacquemart 1876, 35
and 38; Mntz 1885, 153.
59 Lacambre 1998, 123-34.
58
Chapter Three
The Museum
From 1880 onwards, however, Cernuschi appears to have given up the
idea of a comparative study of East and West, as after this time we find
little reference to the Cavaleri collection. Articles written after Cernuschis
death describe the appearance of the Renaissance treasures of the rez-dechausse on Avenue Velasquez as altogether unexpected. It is quite likely
that Cernuschi decided during these years that the Cavaleri collection
should be removed after his death, and his museum devoted entirely to the
Asian arts. What might have prompted such a decision? One consideration
may have been that the Cavaleri collection was heterogeneous in terms of
both quality and quantity: it contained a little of everything, without
covering any single artistic technique, period or geographical area in
depth. Furthermore, Cernuschi discovered after purchasing the Cavaleri
collection that it contained a few fakes, especially in the antiquities
section. Such inconsistencies in school and style, as well as quality, were
unacceptable to Cernuschi, who wished to found a public museum.
In 1880, Cernuschi was appointed a member of the Conseil Suprieur
des Beaux Arts as personalit distingue in the field of the arts. The
CSBA was an institutional body, a kind of laboratory of laws for the
Beaux-Arts republican administration, but without legislative powers. It
dealt with a wide range of issues, including the long-standing problems of
the creation of a Muse des Arts Dcoratifs in Paris, and the construction
of a Caisse des Muses.60 In 1882 the Union des Beaux Arts Appliqus
lIndustrie became the Union Centrale des Arts Dcoratifs, with the
outgoing Arts Minister Antonin Proust as its President.61 Proust was
appointed to provide impetus for the creation of the Muse des Arts
Dcoratifs.62 In the same year, Cernuschi announced his intention to
bequeath his museum of Asian art to the Ville de Paris, in the presence of
Antonin Proust and Philip Cunliffe-Owen, director of the South
Kensington museum and member of the comit de patronage of the
Union.63
Finally Cernuschis closer contact with the supporters of the Arts and
Crafts movement prevailed and showed altogether a shift from the
60 On the Conseil Suprieur des Beaux-Arts and its functions, see Genet Delacroix
1993, 45-65.
61 Antonin Proust (1832-1905) was a French journalist and politician, and
appointed minister of the fine arts in Gambetta's cabinet (1881-1882).
62 However, the Muse des Arts Dcoratifs did not come into being until 1905.
63 Sir Francis Philip Cunliffe-Owen (1828-1894) was Director of the South
Kensington Museum in London between 1873 and 1893.
59
museums original anthropological vocation towards a more rigorous

study of the Asian decorative arts. However, all these changes did not
really undermine the fundamental idea that had inspired Cernuschis
original museographic project. Following Vicos theories, as revised by
Cattaneo and Ferrari, there was in fact a convergence between the study of
the techniquestechneused to create specific works of art and the
historical and anthropological study of the civilisation that had produced
these same art works.
CHAPTER FOUR
COLLECTING FEATHERS:
A JOURNEY FROM MEXICO INTO ITALIAN
COLLECTIONS (16TH-17TH CENTURY)*
CORINNA TANIA GALLORI
America and Feathers: an Introduction

Featherwork was a widespread tradition in pre-Columbian cultures.
Objects decorated with feathers and even feather bedcovers are mentioned
in the earliest records of Columbus.1 The Brazilian Tupinamba made
incredible capes with scarlet ibis feathers.2 From Lisbon in 1501 Giovanni
Mattia Cretico wrote that in the Indie: Ne son molti ocelli de molte
sorte, [] de le piume de quali fano capelli e berete che portano.3 In
1505 Amerigo Vespucci pointed out that the Indios do not possess any
riches, apart from feathers, fish-bone necklaces and small stones;4 Antonio
Pigafetta, in his Notizie del Mondo Nuovo con le figure de paesi scoperti,
describing Brazil, comments that the natives Se vestono de vestiture de
piume de papagalo, con rode grande al cullo de le penne magiore, cosa
* This essay stems from the research conducted during my collaboration with the
project Imgenes en vuelo. Europa, Mexiko und die Globalisierung der Bilder
in der Frhen Neuzeit of Prof. Dr. Gerhard Wolfs directorate, Kunsthistorisches
Institut in Florenz Max-Planck-Institut. The present results are part of a broader
study that is still on-going. My thanks go to Prof. Gerhard Wolf, Elisabetta
Scirocco, Laura Aldovini and Sarah Wilkins for reading and editing my text.
1 Collo and Crovetto 1991, 29.
2 On Tupinambas capes see Buono 2007; Buono 2009.
3 Collo and Crovetto 1991, 630.
4 Honour 1975, 10.
62
Chapter Four
ridicula.5 These pre-Columbian feathers quickly made their way into

European collections and were much sought after as evidence of the newly
discovered lands and of their beautiful, multicoloured and much admired
birds, as well as a glimpse of those lands incredible lifestyle. American
featherwork quickly became a standard presence in European collections.
The ubiquitous presence of feathers was reflected in European iconography
for both the natives and the personification of America, represented with
feather headdresses and skirts.6 Thus in 1519, when Hernn Corts arrived
in Mexico, some Europeans already knew that feathers were used in many
uncommon ways in America.
Mexican pre-Columbian featherwork was certainly remarkable.7 The
artisans working with feathers, the amantecas, were extremely respected
in their own society and had a high social status. In Mexican culture
feathers were not only precious, they had also a strong sacred connotation:
both the human sacrificial victim and the sacrificing priest wore feather
robes.8 Feathers were used for headdresses, fans, and ceremonial shields
whose representations could be remarkably complicated, as the preColumbian shield now in Vienna attests.9 The Spanish Conquistadores
were fascinated with Mexican arts, including featherwork. Corts himself,
describing the gifts received from the Mexican ruler Moctezuma in his
second letter to Emperor Charles V, praised the feather objects: nature
cannot be imitated so wonderfully, either in wax or embroidery. These
gifts were sent to Spain, where they arrived, in early October 1519.10 In his
letters the Lombardy-born Pietro Martire of Anghiera (1457-1526), who
lived at the Spanish court and was one of the first to publish a book on the
New World, reported on Cortss gifts, praising the native artists
ingegno and their cleverness and skilfulness, that surpasses the value of
the materials and surprises me.11 This episode marks one of the first
Italian encounters with featherwork. On 6 March 1520, in Valladolid,
Francesco Corner saw the gifts of signore di Zucatin [...] molte teste di
lupi, tigri et altri animali, lavorate et ornate doro, con molti pennacchi de
5 Collo and Crovetto 1991, 330-2.
6 Honour 1975, 12; Massing 1991, 515-20.
7 On Mexican featherwork see Anders 1970; Martnez del Ro de Redo 1970; de
Maria y Campos 1993; Cue 1993; Martnez del Ro de Redo 1993; Castell
Yturbide 1993; Mongne 1994; Estrada de Gerlero 1994; Russo 1997; Vandamme
2003; and the catalogue of the recent exhibition Imgenes en vuelo, forthcoming.
8 Russo 2002.
9 Wien, Museum fr Vlkerkunde, Inv. 43.380; see van Bussel 2002.
10 On Corts shipment from Mexico, see now Russo 2011.
11 On the Italian perception of Mexico, see Benzoni 2004.
63
papagalli et altri uccelli a nui incogniti, et assai altre varie cose di pietre
rimesse molto minute, che in vero dimostra in quelle parti esser persone
dingegno.12 In 1522, the Venetian ambassador Gasparo Contarini (14831542), later to become cardinal, also admired the gifts of the Americans
and praised them at the Senate of his native city. Contarini specifically
mentioned featherwork, comparing it to embroiderya visual and technical
connection that is also emphasised in many other sourcesand noting the
feathers natural cangiantismo, or shifts in hue.13 In the 1520s, Christian
images made with feathers started to appear in Mexico, and in the 1540s
they quickly multiplied. Such images were soon sent to Europe as well.
In what follows, I shall present an overview of Christian feather
paintings, or feather mosaics, collected in Italy during the sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries; a topic addressed in many writings on specific
collections and/or collections of Americana.14 My aim is to underscore the
specificity of the Christian feather paintings in European collections. In
order to show how such works of art were handled and experienced, I will
present the results of my archival research on featherwork collecting,
which has focused mostly on Rome and Florence. I will then address the
cultural and aesthetic motivations that lay behind the appreciation for
featherwork in the sixteenth century and also the conservation problems
they raised.
Surprisingly little information exists about the collecting of featherwork
in Italy. Intellectuals and authors of books on New Spain or America often
mentioned feather-images they saw in private collections, but only
because they were a curiosity of those lands; therefore they did not record
exactly how they were obtained, or where and how they were displayed. In
Italy, Mexican featherworks, either pre-Columbian or Christian, were
obtained through two channels: missionaries and Spain.15 The former sent
them as gifts from the Indies to high-ranking church officials, such as
12 Berchet 1892, 100, n. XIX; Benzoni 2004, 11; Markey 2008, I, 53-4.
13 Berchet 1892, 129, n. XLI: lavorano poi lavori di penne ducelli miracolosi.
certamente io non ho veduto in queste parti ricami, n altro lavoro, tanto sottile
come sono alcuni di quelli di penna; li quali hanno unaltra vaghezza perch
paiono di diversi colori, secondo ch hanno il lume, come che vediamo farsi nel
collo di un colombo. Cangiantismo is a phenomenon that is most often linked to
textiles: thanks to its weaving, a fabric seems to undergo a change in colour
according to its orientation to the light. Such an effect was often imitated in
painted textiles, especially during the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. On the
term vaghezza see Russo 2002, 236.
14 For example on collecting featherwork in Italy see Heikamp 1972, 11-2, 15-8;
Heikamp 1976.
15 As stressed by Benzoni 2004, 147.
64
Chapter Four
popes and cardinals, or to members of their own religious order. Objects

arriving from Spain were acquired through envoys or were sent by local
noble families as political gifts. Some artefacts seem to have been custommade for their recipient. Feather-mitres often had coats of arms; a triptych
with the Deposition from the Cross bore the arms of Queen Anna of Spain
(1549-1580), and a mosaic owned by the last duke of Urbino, Francesco
Maria II Della Rovere (1549-1631), showed un Arme di S(ua) A(ltezza)
in campo turchino.16 Men of learning and scientific institutions, in whose
collections featherworks were often found, seem to have received them
through their own Italian patrons. Some featherwork followed even more
unusual routes, such as the feather gift the Japanese ambassadors gave to
Veronese collector Francesco Calceolari (or Calzolari) in 1585.17 Artists
seemed to avoid collecting this kind of work of art, with one notable
exception: Pompeo Leonis (1531-1608) collection in Madrid contained
the Deposition from the Cross feather triptych of the late Queen Anna;
however, in this case the reason for treasuring the triptych could have been
its connection with a member of one of Europes foremost royal families.18
16 Coats of arms are to be found in particular on mitres, as in the case of one of

those once in possession of Mencia de Mendoza (see Cummins 2010, 17) and of
the one now in Vienna (see Estrada de Gerlero 1994, 84-6). Concerning the
Deposition see this essays footnote 18. The Della Rovere duke had also a feather
mosaic showing Christ, the apostle Andrew and a ship. Interestingly, in 1630-1631
both examples of featherwork were ultimately sent to Florence, to Francesco
Marias granddaughter and heir Vittoria (1622-1694), fiance of Ferdinando II de
Medici (1610-1670). See ASF, Ducato di Urbino, Classe Seconda, 3, Nota
dill'argenterie, et ori incassati per mandarli a Fiorenza, fol. 902v: N. 2 Quadretti
di penne dUcelli; Barocchi and Gaeta Bertela 2002, II.1, 68 note 251; Semenza
2005, 136 note 460. In Vittorias 1654-1656 inventory only the non-heraldic
featherwork survives (ASF, Guardaroba Medicea [GM] 674, Revisione della
Guardaroba di Vittoria della Rovere, fol. 12 n. 5; Semenza 2005, 136 note 462).
17 Cerutus, Chioccus 1622, 713-4; Lightbown 1969, 234-5; Impey 1985, 268;
Morena 2005, 46 note 24. On the presence of Mexican featherwork in China and
Japan see Russo 2009, 155 note 6.
18 The triptych appears in the 1608 posthumous inventory. It was housed in the
most prestigious room of Leonis house, together with the most important pieces of
his collection. See Aimi 1991, 16; Di Dio 2006, 141, 143-4; Di Dio 2009, 4, 6, 11
note 68. Two triptychs with the Deposition were in Prince Carloss collection
c.1565-1568 (see Prez de Tudela and Jordan Gschwend 2001, 109), hence it is not
clear if the triptych bearing the coat of arms of Queen Anna was one of these (in
which case the coat of arms must have been added later) or a different one.
65
The Journey of Feather Mosaics

The earliest surviving feather mosaic in Europe is a Mass of Saint Gregory
(Fig. 15), now in Auch, France. The long inscription running along its
border records the year 1539 and the names of the Franciscan lay friar
Pedro de Gante (d. 1572), founder of the first school of the arts in Mexico,
and of Pope Paul III (1468-1549). Thanks to a letter from the Italian
Franciscan Francesco All, we know that around that time two feather
images were sent to Pope Paul III; the Auch Mass was probably one of
them.19 Sending an image of the Mass to this particular pope had a precise
significance.20 After years of debates concerning the status of natives, in
June 1537 Paul III officially had granted the Indios the status of rational
beings with souls. Among the other implications, this meant that they
could become part of Christendom and receive the sacraments of baptism
and communion. Therefore, the depiction of a mass was a fitting gift for
him. Furthermore, giving featherwork to the pope could be intended as a
demonstration of the Indios ingegno, a term that means intellect,
ingenuity, but also skill, or capacity for creation.21 Pietro Martire and
Francesco Corner both used this word to characterise the Mexican artists.
If the Indios were sub-humans, as some believed, then they could not have
ingegno. The feather gift of a Mass thus would have been even more
fitting, as a sign of both the Christianisation of the Indies and the
rationality of the Indios. The Auch Mass was probably one the first pieces
of featherwork meant specifically for Italy, but unfortunately, apart from
what is written in its inscription, its early history is still unknown. We are
not even aware if it actually reached Paul III, since it resurfaced only in
the late twentieth century on the French art market.
19 [All] [c. 1541], [3]: Egli non haueuano caratteri ne sapeuano dipingere, ma
haueuano grande memoria, & faceuano belle figure con pe(n)ne de diuersi animali
& etiam di pietra. Al presente meglio dipingeno di uoi, & fanno diuerse figure de
santi con q(ue)lle pe(n)ne, delle quali ne ho uedute due, quale questi padri che son
passati di qua portano a Roma al beatissimo padre Papa Paulo, & son piu belle che
se fusseno di oro, ouer arge(n)to. Mandano etiam questi indiani tre casse piene di
pietre preciose con alcune di queste figure, & etiam con due bellitissime [sic]
spalere al Papa; the first to associate this letter to the Auch Mass was Russo 1997,
97 note 74.
20 For this interpretation and other meanings of the Auch Mass see Mongne 1994;
Cummins 2002, 116; Wolf 2007.
21 Battaglia 1961-2004, VII, 1019-23.
66
Chapter Four
Figure 15: Mexican amanteca, Mass of St. Gregory, 1539, Auch, Muse des
Jacobins (photo: Muse des Jacobins).
Other popes owned Christian featherwork. A Piet appears in the

posthumous inventory of Pope Paul IV (1555-1559), and the most ancient
featherwork still in Italy, a feather mitre housed in the museum of the
Duomo of Milan (Fig. 16), was sent as a gift to Pope Pius IV (15591565).22 There is no information concerning the arrival of the mitre in
22 For Paul IVs featherwork see Gori 1877, 56: Vn quadro duna Piet di penne
di papagallo; Barbier de Montault 1889-1902, I, 60. The original document is still
to be found. For Pius IVs mitres history see Mapelli Mozzi 1978, for its
iconography, Gallori 2009; ead. 2011; ead. forthcoming. Pius owned also other
American objects. In 1571 Count Jakob Hannibal von Hohenems offered to
67
Rome, nor on its location in the papal collection. The mitres recorded
history begins only after the Milanese-born pope gave it to his nephew, the
cardinal Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584), archbishop of Milan and future
saint. We do not know where Carlo kept his mitre, or if he actually used it,
as a book published in 1739 claims.23 According to the Capitolo
inventories, after his death the mitre was kept in a wardrobe in the Duomo
sacristy, where it stood as a memorial of the sainted archbishop from 1597
until the creation of the Cathedral museum in the twentieth century. 24 We
do not know if in the intervening centuries it was sometimes shown to
visitors and/or to the faithful, as we have no mention of it apart fromthose
in inventories and books on the Duomo. Until the creation of the Cathedral
museum, the mitre was always kept close to other memorabilia associated
with San Carlo and in the nineteenth century it was put in a case for
better protection (Fig. 17). Interestingly, Carlo Borromeo seems to have
set a trend for Milans archbishops: his cousin Federico Borromeo (15641631, archbishop from 1596) was interested in acquiring the feather
triptych with the Deposition from the Cross and the coat of arms of Queen
Anna from the late Pompeo Leonis collection;25 Federicos own
successor, Cesare Monti (1593-1650, archbishop from 1632), also probably
owned a feather image.26
Thanks to a 1572 inventory we know that Pope Pius V (15661572)
had several feather-images: a Virgin between St. Peter and St. Paul, a St.
John the Baptist con sua Cortinella dormesino rosso con il ferro et anelli
dargento and a mitre con li misterij della Passione, probably a
Monogram of the Holy Names similar to the one in Milan.27 The Virgin
Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol an Amerindian anchor axe claiming it came from the
collection of his late uncle Pope Pius IV (Yaya 2008, 178).
23 Frigerio 1739, 91.
24 Milano, Archivio del Capitolo Metropolitano, fondo Sagrestia Meridionale,
cart. 3 (ex 150), fasc. 8, Inventario di tutte le [] cose appartenenti alla
Ven(erand)a Sacristia Meridionale [1597], fol. 28v.
25 Aimi 1991, 16, but for a more precise reconstruction see Di Dio 2006, 141,
143-4; ead. 2009, 4, 6, 11 note 68.
26 Milano, Archivio Storico Diocesano, Mensa ArcivescovileQuadreria, fols.
101v-102r: Un quadrettino con lImagine di nostra Signora in piede, et Angioli
allintorno fatti in piuma con cornice dhebano et vetro avanti; see Bona
Castellotti 1994, 30; Basso 1994, 108 n. 132.
27 ASR, Not. A. Martini, prot. 1223 A.S., Inventariu(m) originale Reru(m) et
bonor(um) in Cubiculis se. Re. Pii Papae V.ti et alijs locis palatii ap.ci hic intro
n(omin)atis nec non in saluarobba eiusdem se.re. Pii V.ti repertorum, fols. 213v
(Virgin with St. Peter and St. Paul), 192r (John the Baptist), 198v (mitre). The
Saint John was in the cubicolo nuovo close to one of the popes chapels. A quick
68
Chapter Four
and the mitre were then in the possession of Pope Gregory XIII (15721586).28 Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590) was also said to own a feather St.
Francis.29
Figure 16: Mexican amanteca, Mitre with Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus and
Mary, before 1566, Milan, Museo del Duomo (photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in
Florenz Max Plank Institute Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano).
mention of the feather-mosaics is in Lanciani 1902-1912, IV, 42, 43; Mossetti
1985, 303.
28 ASR, Not. A. Martini, prot. 1223 A.S., Inventariu(m) reru(m) et bonor(um)
[] in guardaroba S.D.N. D(omi)ni Gregorij diuina prouid(enti)a Papa XIIJ
existentiu(m) pro maiori parte ex alio Inuentario in actis meis ex(iste)nte extractis,
fols. 234v (mitre), 244r (Virgin).
29 Acosta 1591, 185v; Acosta 1596, 90v; Aldrovandi 1599-1603, I, 565; Callegari
1924-1925, 501; Anders 1970, 9; Castell Yturbide 1993, 147; Estrada de Gerlero
1994, 78; Russo 2009, 155-6, 159.
69
Figure 17: Milan Mitre as in 1924-25 (scan: author Veneranda Fabbrica del
Duomo di Milano).
Returning to the collecting of featherwork in Rome, it is clear that these

prestigious items were also part of the papal collections of the period.
70
Chapter Four
Figure 18: Mexican amanteca, Mitre with Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus
and Mary (verso), before 1586, Firenze, Museo degli Argenti (photo:
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz).
71
In Rome, there were other important collectors of featherwork in addition

to sixteenth-century popes: Cardinal Roberto Strozzi owned pre-Hispanic
shields; Tommaso de Cavalieri (1509-1587), Michelangelos friend, had
shields and some Christian featherwork.30 An unknown cardinal ensured
that his feather mitre was placed in his tomb.31 The Jesuits arrived in
Mexico in 1572, and from 1579 their Roman archive is full of
referencesunfortunately very short onesto Christian feather-images
sent from Mexico to the orders generals and to other members.32 I would
like, however, to focus in this essay on the featherworks of Ferdinando de
Medici (1549-1609), since his particularly rich collection best illustrates
the different possible uses of the Mexican mosaics, and how they were
acquired and handled by their owners.
In fact, many members of the Medici family owned American
featherwork.33 Duke Cosimo I (1519-1574) had some pre-Columbian
feather objects: shields, capes, and, possibly, a feather image of the
Virgin.34 Thanks to the posthumous inventory of Francesco (1541-1587),
Cosimos son and Ferdinandos elder brother, we know that he kept two
feather images in the Casino di San Marco: Vn Cenacolo di penne
dellIndie, con lettere, and Vno Aouatino di penna di pagone piccolo
entroui un Cristo con ornamento.35 Only the latter was kept in the
30 For Roberto Strozzis shields see Boissard 1597, 5; Markey 2008, I, 172; for
Tommasos featherworks, see Heikamp 1976, 461-2.
31 The feather-mitre was found in the nineteenth century, and then ended up in the
collection of Joseph Spithover, a German publisher active in Rome (as attests Barbier
de Montault 1889-1902, I, 60, 287 n. 164 note 4). The Spithover mitre is usually
identified with the one now in the collection of the Hispanic Society of America at
New York, as cautiously suggested by Heikamp 1972, 17, but could be also be the
one in Lyons Muse des Tissus. The latter is in much worse condition then the
former, a state of preservation that could support the identification, given that a long
stay in a tomb must have had an impact on the mitres state of conservation.
32 ARSI, cod. Mex 1 (Mexic. Epist. Gener. 1574-1599), fol. 24r (Zubillaga and
Rodrguez 1956-1991, I, 406); Zubillaga and Rodrguez 1956-1991, II, 264, 691-2;
III, 286. See also Martnez del Ro de Redo 1993, 109.
33 For other Mexican objects in the Medici collections see Heikamp 1972; Markey
2008; Keating and Markey 2011. On Ferdinando see also Butters 2009.
34 ASF, GM 75, Inuentario Originale della Guardaroba del Serenissimo Gran
Duca di Toscana, fol. 61r: Vno quadretto di una uergine maria di penne n. 1;
Markey 2008, I, 124-5. Sometimes the inventory is linked to Francesco de
Medicis collection.
35 ASF, GM 136, Inventario della Guardaroba della Casa e Palazzo del Casino, a
custodia di Pietro Elmi cominciato oggi questo di 8 di marzo 1587 [1588], fol.
136r (mentioned also in Markey 2008, I, 153). In the inventories feather images are
often described as being made of parrots or peacock feather (see also this essays
72
Chapter Four
Casinos gallery, near a Venus by Bronzino and an ancient head, while

the Last Supper was hanging on a wall in a room furnished with
cupboards. In 1623, only the Last Supper was still in the possession of
Francescos son, Antonio, but was kept in the room of an inserviente,
hidden inside a cupboard with some rugs.36
It was easiest to see feather-images in Rome, thanks to the papal and
other ecclesiastic collections that were accessible to Ferdinando. As early
as 1567, he wrote to the Florentine envoy in Spain, Giovanni Battista
Uguccioni, asking him to buy un quadro di mezzo braccio di pittura di
penne che vengono dal Per.37 After 1571 Ferdinando had Una Pieta di
Penne di Pagone, that he gave to a Signora Mondraghona, possibly a
lady of Francesco de Medicis court: Ana de Pontes, wife of Flavio di
Arazzola, marquis of Mondragone.38 According to a twentieth-century
publication, a letter that the cardinal sent to Bianca Cappello (1548-1587),
Francescos second wife, mentions the gift of a feather image of the Virgin
for her camerino.39 Ferdinando wrote also that, if not worth her
attention, it was to be given to her maid Lena (Arrighi?), who could put it
in capo al letto. It has so far been impossible for me to locate the
original letter, but if it is authentic, then feather mosaics could be
experienced like normal devotional paintings. Similarly, in the seventeenth
century, the Milanese collector Manfredo Settala (1600-1680) praised the
devotion these images were able to evoke.40
note 22), probably because there were the only widely known birds with such
beautifully coloured and iridescent feathers.
36 ASF, GM 399; Covoni 1892, 222.
37 ASF, MP 5121, I, fols. 64v-66r; Deswarte-Rosa 1991, 164; Arizzoli-Clmentel
1991, 519 note 41; Butters 1999, 224; Markey 2008, I, 172-3.
38 ASF, GM 79, Inventario della Guardaroba del Ill.mo Rev.mo Cardinale, 1571,
fols. 42s-d; cfr. Barocchi and Gaeta Bertela 2002-, I.1, 51 note 199; Markey 2008,
I, 176 note 29.
39 Loredana [Zacchia-Rondini] 1936, 232; Heikamp 1972, 16; Martnez del Rio de
Redo 1993, 114-5; Butters 1999, 222 nn. 46-7; Musacchio 2007, 487 and 489. The
surname Arrighi comes from Covoni 1892, 10; Loredana [Zacchia-Rondini] 1936,
290; a Medici maid called Lena is referred to also in Tomasino 2007, 76. We know
from other sources that Bianca wanted to obtain cose rare di quei paesi
[America] (Heikamp 1972, 30 note 47; Markey 2008, I, 118-9).
40 Terzago 1677, 168-9: Imagine di vna Santa Spagnuola mirabilmente lauorata
nel Peru delle piume pi colorite dellvccellino Ourisia [the hummingbird] gi di
sopra me(n)touato; che trahe non meno la mente di chi la mira a vna diuota
riuere(n)za, che locchio a fissarsi, e nella variet de colori, e nella finezza
dellartificio. Manfredo owned also a second featherwork, showing the Virgin
with Child Christ and St. John the Baptist.
73
While Ferdinando was in Rome, he acquired two feather mitres. One,

showing the Trinity with St Peter and the Assumption of the Virgin, was in
Ferdinandos hands around 1584-1586, the other, graced with another
Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, on 26 November 1586
(Fig. 18).41 Both were sent to Florence when their owner became grand
duke, but only the latter still exists, and is now in the Museo degli Argenti.
The mitre with Trinity and Assumption disappeared from the Florentine
inventories as early as 1595, but I have discovered evidence that it was
transferred to the collection of the Giardino dei Semplici in Pisa, a
museum-laboratory, founded by the Medici dukes and tied to the Studio
Pisano.42 The institute, rebuilt by Ferdinando himself in 1595, had a rich
collection of naturalia and mirabilia that assembled all that was rare,
precious and extravagant. Feather paintings in the Giardinos collection
were seen as early as 1596 by the Englishman Robert Dallington.43 The
first surviving inventory of the Giardino, from 1626, recorded that a mitre
made with peacock feathers was kept in the first floor gallery, or stanza
grande, between two windows, over the cornice in a casket that
contained also a two-headed calf skin, a human monster with two heads, a
copper sun, a chain of teeth tied to a string, a fossilised human tooth, and
seven copper plates showing the gardens map.44 Another inventory, from
1686, gives more information, as it records Vna Mitra fatta di penne di
Pauone entrovi lAssunta, glApostoli, e nelle Cascate dessa S. Pietro, e s.
Paolo con la sua Custodia,45 a description matching that of the 1584
41 The existence of two mitres was pointed out in Heikamp 1972, 16-7. For their
history see Butters1999; Markey 2008, I, 173-6.
42 On the Giardino and its collection see Tongiorgi Tomasi 1980; Tongiorgi
Tomasi 2002, in particular 60-4.
43 Dallington 1605 (1974), 24: and he (Duke Ferdinando) hath also another lesser
house lately built, wherein are many small Statues of Marble and Mettall, many
Medalles and Pictures, some painted others of feathers very exquisitely artificiall.
Cf. Tongiorgi Tomasi 1980, 522; on Dallington see Chaney 1992 and Tongiorgi
Tomasi 2002, 74.
44 ASP, Universit, 531, serie 5, Inventario di t(ut)te le robbe, arnesi, et ogni altra
cosa esistente nella Galleria, et Giardino de semplici di S(ua) A(ltezza)
S(erenissima) in Pisa, 16 luglio 1626, fol. 7r: Vna cassetta di quoio ed una Mitria
tessuta tutta di Penne di Pauone. On the gallerys structure see Tongiorgi Tomasi
2002, 62-3; for a full inventory transcription see Tongiorgi Tomasi and Tosi 2002,
217-26.
45 ASP, Universit, 531, serie 5, Inventario di tutte le Robbe, et Arnesi esistentj
nella Galleria, Fonderia, e Casa [] di q.o Giardino de Semplici, 14 dicembre
1686, fol. 69r. As the inventory specifies, by then the mitre had been moved inside
an armadio.
74
Chapter Four
feather mitre. It is thus likely that Ferdinando himself sent his mitre to
Pisa, around 1595, as a gift for the rebuilding of the institution. Such a gift
was not unusual, for other scientific collections also included featherwork:
we know that Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605), in his Bologna collection,
had a feather Saint Jerome that he had received from Cardinal Gabriele
Paleotti.46
The final pieces of featherwork in Ferdinandos collection are two
Madonnas. The first, a Virgin col figlio in collo, is recorded in the
inventory of 8 January 1588, and it might be the same Madonna con
Nostro Signore in collo fatto di piume di pi colori, con ornamento
debano that in 1638 was hanging Nel secondordine dalla porta a man
ritta in the stanzino gi di Madama Serenissima in front of the
Gallerias main door.47 In 1655 a Madonna con Gies in braccio, due
angioli sopra la testa con la corona; con cornici debano con fogliami
dargento con foglia simile per attaccarlo was hanging in the Villa di
Poggio Imperiale with another feather mosaic showing St. Aloysius
Gonzaga.48 The second featherwork with the image of the Madonna was
sent to Ferdinando by the Spanish ambassador, as recorded in a letter
written to Duke Alfonso II dEste on 24 September 1588.49 Unfortunately,
this is the total amount of the information available today.
46 Aldrovandi 1599-1603, I, 656. We have no information on how Aldrovandis

Saint Jerome was displayed and, unfortunately, no featherwork from Bologna
survivesapart from a later Saint Bernard of unknown origins (Bologna, Museo
Civico Medievale, inv. n. 1291, see Laurencich Minelli 1992, 10; Medica 1992, 43
note 13; Filipetti 1992).
47 For the 1588 Virgin see Markey 2008, I, 177; for the 1638 inventory see
Barocchi and Gaeta Bertela 2002-, II.2, 645 n. 951.
48 ASF, GM 657, Inventario della Guardaroba di Villa Imperiale, 1654 (1655),
fol. 17v; see Heikamp 1972, 22, 37 n. 63; Barocchi and Gaeta Bertela 2002-, II.2,
645 n. 951; Markey 2008, I, 177. Actually as shown by Detlef Heikamp (1972, 223, 37 nn. 62-4) in 1654-55 the Villa di Poggio Imperiale housed five featherpaintings: the Madonna and St. Aloysius, a Piet and a St. Mary Magdalen, a
Virgin of Loreto (Madonna dellOreto). The Magdalen image probably belonged
to Maria Maddalena, widow of Cosimo II and daughter of a collector of American
objects, Charles II, archduke of Austria. She bought the villa in 1622 and, thanks to
her, the building housed many paintings and artworks associated with her
namesake (see Mosco 1986; Spinelli 2008, 660-3, 671-2; Barocchi and Gaeta
Bertel 2002-, II.1, 36).
49 ASM, AF, 29, l. 455, published in Butters 2007, 277, 326 n. VII.4: Ha
appresentato esso Ambasciatore [di Spagna] al Granduca [] una Madonna fatta
di piume bellissima adornata intorno dargento et doro.
75
The Allure of Featherwork

Why were Mexican Christian featherworks so sought after and what
qualities were appreciated?50 First of all, feathers and feather-clad people
were tied to the image of the New World. Seventeenth-century sources
suggest that featherwork was considered either a typically American
production or the best that New Spain could offer: a curiosity or a
specifically local art. In 1655 the Jesuit Francisco Ximnez felt it necessary
to offer Athanasius Kircher chocolate, multi-coloured feather-images and
gold (in this order),51 while later Lorenzo Magalotti (1637-1712) linked
feather-working to the local manufacture of pietre dure mosaics in
Florence.52 Thus featherwork became a must-have for those interested in the
new lands and was often found in collections that boasted many different
objects from America such as that of Tommaso de Cavalieri or the Medici.
While desirable, featherworks, as with other American objects, were
difficult to obtain. The Spanish were quite possessive of their new colonies,
thus good connections were needed in order to obtain such items. Displaying
featherwork and other exotica could be a way of boasting of ones political
connections or possessions. Furthermore, Christian featherwork acted as a
proof of the Spiritual Conquest of America. Featherwork, a technique
once used for decorating sacrificial victims and priests, or for creating pagan
idols, now offered its beauty to the Christian God.53
Last but not least, featherworks were beautiful. In order to understand
what was aesthetically appreciated in the featherworks, we must refer to
some sixteenth century sources.54 Gian Lorenzo Anania (1545-1609) in his
50 See also Butters 1999, 224.
51 Osorio 1993, 3-5; Bargellini 2001, 86-7; Findlen 2004, 336.
52 ASF, Magalotti 200, fol. 385: gi si sa, che questa fu la manifattura piu
celebre, piu fauorita e piu alla moda nella Corte di Messico: listesso appresso a
poco che quella delle pietre commesse nella Corte di Toscana, published as
Magalotti 1825, 401. On Magalotti and his idea of Mexico and Mexican art see
Benzoni 2004, 199-203.
53 Feest 1985, 238, for example writes that colonial feather-mosaics are more
numerous than other feathery objects partly because their Christian content and
European-derived artistic conventions made them more acceptable pieces for the
average collector than items which could be suspected of having to do with
heathen idolatry. See also Markey 2008, I, 176.
54 The sources cannot be found in books on art, whose authors ignore this kind of
techniquethis probably reflects what the artists themselves thought about
featherwork: it was not real Art. The only exception are the Comentarios de la
pintura of Felipe de Guevara (d. 1563), published only in 1788 (see de Guevara
1788, 237). However, there were plenty of descriptions in sixteenth-century books
76
Chapter Four
Cosmographia (Naples, 1573)a description of the areas of the world and

their characteristicswrote about Mexican featherwork without having
actually seen any.55 He praised the craft of the artisans, and their patience in
finding the best arrangement for the feathers and endurance while working.
After having actually seen an example of featherwork, a St. Jerome owned
by signora Diana Loffreda, he modified the description in the subsequent
editions of his book. He praises the feather art for its beauty, due to the
liveliness of its natural colours, so well and aptly arranged, that I think it is
not possible to see a similar image, or a better one, between the ancient or
the most skilled modern painters.56 Another important source is the
Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Seville, 1590) of Jos de Acosta
(1540-1600). This book, written by a Spanish Jesuit, was quickly translated
into Italian. Writing on the New Worlds magnificent birds, the author
praises feather-images because of the delicate work, whose surface can be
so smooth, that it looks as it was painted with brushes, but also because of
their beauty and elegance that makes them so vivacious and lively, that is
enjoyable in a way the brush and the colours for painting cannot
reproduce.57 He then reports some anecdotes, one of which concerns Pope
Sixtus V. The pope was given a feather St. Francis and, not believing it was
really made with feathers, he touched the surface in order to verify. Jos de
Acosta also mentions the admiration for the craft in arranging feathers
(feathers were so well arranged that a naked eye could not discern whether
the colours were from natural feathers or painted with the brush) and the
natural cangiantismo of the feathers themselves. Thus both texts emphasise
the same reasons for appreciating featherwork. Firstly, the skill of the artisan
that transformed the material so that the surface of the image seemed
smooth, as well as their ability to reproduce minute details using only
feathers (Fig. 19). Secondly, viewers marvelled at the natural features of the
feathers: their colours and their cangiantismo. This was an appealing feature
for a society used to mannerism in painting; the natural colour-changing
quality of the feathers was even more compelling than the shifts in hue
depicted in painting.58 Also it is worth noting that light, colour and the
correct positioning of each element of the composition, evaluated by their
fidelity to the real, had been fundamental aesthetic categories in Europe
since the mediaeval period.59
about the New World.
55 dAnania 1573, [part IV, 7v].
56 dAnania 1582, 369.
57 Acosta 1596, 90v, part IV, chapter XXXVII.
58 As stressed by Butters 1999, 224.
59 As pointed out by Shelton 1994, 191.
77
Figure 19: Mexican amanteca, detail of the Crucified Christ, from Mitre with
Monogram of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, before 1566, Milan, Museo del
Duomo (photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz Max Plank Institut
Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano).
There could also have been further reasons for appreciating featherwork.
The iconography of the feather-mosaics was often copied from European
prints. For example, in the Florence mitre, we can perceive derivations
from Raphaels Deposition from the Cross, and Michelangelos Piet.60
Such visual quotes and the transposition of known masterpieces into a
different artistic medium could have added additional interest for the
Italian collectors. Also, it is worth noting an interesting circulation of ideas
between America and Europe. In Thomas Mores Utopia (1516) the
islands priests are dressed in multi-coloured feather robes, a choice
clearly inspired by New World discoveries.61 The use of feathers was
60 Gallori 2009, 398-402; ead. 2011, 71, 74, 82-7; ead., forthcoming.
61 More 1517, book II, IV, De religionibus utopiensium, 154: Candidis in templo
uestibus amicitur populus, sacerdos uersicolores induitur, & opere & forma
mirabiles, materia non perinde preciosa. neque enim auro intextae, aut raris
coagmentatae lapidibus, sed diuersis auium plumis, tam scite, tantoq(ue) artificio
78
Chapter Four
traditional in Mexico and the feathers had a sacred connotation, hence the
creation of Christian vestments decorated with feathers was a logical
application of the local technique. However, it should be emphasised that the
earliest archbishops of Mexico were avid readers of Mores books, and it is
under their rule that feather mitres started to appear. Also the iconography of
some of these mitres is interesting if compared with Mores description.
Utopias priests feather-robes were said to hide arcana [] mysteria and
interestingly the scenes of the Passion now called Arma Christi were often
referred to as mysteria passionis, at least in Latin and Italian. According to
the inventories, the mitres showing the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary were
actually depicting li misterij della Passione.62 Is this a coincidence?
Certainly More was not alluding to Christian mysteries in Utopia, but his
phrasing could have inspired the Mexican artists in choosing their mitres
iconography. Moreover in Europe, the knowledge of Utopia could have
been another filter through which to understand and interpret featherwork.
The interest of the collectors in iridescence and minute craftsmanship,
however, had some consequences for the display of featherwork. For
instance, they both point to a situation where these objects could be easily
taken down and touched. The collectors might have liked to surprise their
guests by showing off their featherwork, and the guests could have tried to
touch the mosaics, in order to verify if the images were really made with
feathers, as Pope Sixtus supposedly did. Such a situation does not bode
well for featherwork conservation. Feathers are extremely difficult to
preserve. Insects, dust, light, pH levels, temperature, humidity, and surface
abrasion, can damage feathers, render them dull or break them.63 The
fragility of feathers is a disadvantage considering the temptation to touch
these objects and to expose them to light in order to enjoy the colour
changes. Eventually, the featherwork becomes ruined, as shown in a
particularly dramatic fashion in the four seventeenth century mosaics
housed in the Santa Casa, Loreto (Fig. 20).
laboratae sunt, ut operis precium nullius aestimatio materiae fuerit aequatura. Ad
hoc in illis uolucrum pennis plumisque, & certis earu(m) ordinibus, quibus in
sacerdotis ueste discriminantur, arcana quaedam dicunt contineri mysteria, quorum
interpretatione cognita (quae per sacrificos diligenter traditur) diuinorum in se
beneficiorum, suaeq(ue) uicissim pietatis in deum, ac mutui quoque inter se officij
admoneantur. I want to thank Dr. Maria Teresa Binaghi Olivari for drawing this
passage to my attention; I do not think this has ever been noticed by scholars of
American featherwork.
62 See this essays footnote 27. In Spanish inventories the description was quite
different: see Cummins 2010, 34-5 note 11.
63 Pearlstein 2006.
79
Figure 20: Mexican amanteca, detail of a hand, from St. Ambrose, before 1668,
Loreto, Tesoro della Santa Casa (photo: Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz).
When a feather mosaic was damaged, it was usually thrown away. It is

only thanks to a combination of luck and historical events that some of
these objects survived. In the late seventeenth century, featherwork lost its
fascination for most Europeans and became perceived as a popular art,
admirable only for the artisans painstaking care and patience in creating
it, but not valuable. This is, for example, the opinion of Lorenzo
Magalotti, who did not appreciate the featherworks disegno.64 The mitre
in Milan helped to preserve the memory of a local saint and could be
considered as a contact relic, while that in Palazzo Pitti which once
64 ASF, Magalotti, 200, fol. 385: perch di cos gran maniera, come mi si fanno
sperare, non ne ho mai uedute. [] Pu essere che questarte, dopo auer risentito
per lungo tempo essa ancora i pregiudizi, che corrono indispensabilmente per tutte
le altre nella rovina deglimperj, sotto i quali hanno fiorito, risorga adesso con
lacquisto di quel miglior disegno, che pu auer introdotto losseruazione delle
pitture andate col dEuropa, e se non altro, de ritratti, che non possono non
esseruene molti di Velasco, di Caregno, di Chignones, e daltri eccellenti ritrattisti
spagnoli: e che doue per laddietro non uera dammirare altro che la diligenza, in
oggi ui sia da contentarsi di qualche contorno un poco pi al suo luogo: basta
uedremo, published as Magalotti 1825, 400-02. Both diligenza and disegno were
concepts drawn from Giorgio Vasaris artistic terminology.
80
Chapter Four
belonged to Ferdinando I, acquired an even more impressive history in the

following centuries: it was believed to be a gift from the Emperor Charles
V to a member of the family, Pope Clement VII.65 It survived because it
was a link to the familys illustrious past, while other featherworks in the
Medici collection disappeared.
Conclusions
Since the present article is part of a larger project that is still a work in
progress, I hope to have given nonetheless a clear picture of the state of
my research and of the difficulties incurred while dealing with such a
fragile category of works of art. Therefore, I would like to conclude by
sketching out possible avenues and the future direction of my
investigation.
First of all, it is necessary to continue the study of single local Italian
contexts and of the itineraries of feather paintings. The collections of
Bologna and those once owned by the Medici have been so thoroughly
studied, 66 that it seems more profitable to start focusing on other cities and
to try to reconstruct a network for the collecting of featherwork. After all,
the missing mitre of Ferdinando was finally found in Pisa! As the centre of
the Catholic Church, Rome was an important show case for New World
objects and also the first stop in the travels of many featherworks through
the Italian peninsula. It was in the eternal city, for example, that Venanzio
Filippo Piersanti (1688-1761) acquired his two feather paintings, now
housed in his birthplace (and family home), Matelicas Museo Piersanti.67
Milan was part of the Spanish empire, and its archbishops and Manfredo
Settala owned featherworks. What about other local collectors?68 It would
be interesting to study the role of Livorno, a porto franco whence feather
mosaics were shipped at least since 1572.69 Also the mosaics Lorenzo
65 Zelia Nuttall (1892, 460; 1895, 335) was told by the custodian in charge that it
[the mitre] dated from the seventeenth century and had belonged to a cardinal or
pope of the Medici family, identified by her with Alessandro di Ottaviano de
Medici (1535-1605). Guido Valeriano Callegari (1924-1925, 509) is the first to
report the Clement hypothesis.
66 On Bolognese collections see, for example, Laurencich-Minelli 1992.
67 Interestingly, in the museum catalogue the feather-paintings are listed as being
made of fabric. See Antonelli 1998, 109 nn. 299-300.
68 Some were interested in featherworking: Silvio Leydi informs me that on 29
may 1598 the inventory of Francesco dAdda records a Madonna piccola di
piume (Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana, Archivio DAdda, 85).
69 For the 1572 shipment see Heikamp 1972, 11; Toorians 1994, 63, 64; Markey
81
Magalotti was so unenthusiastically waiting for would have been arriving

there.70
Another element which should be factored in when considering the
Italian interest in featherworks is the appreciation for polymatheric
artworks in the Renaissance. In late Quattrocento Lombardy Ambrogio
Bevilacqua created two little-known versions of the Madonna and Child.71
The most charming is the one housed in the Pinacoteca del Castello
Sforzesco: only the body parts are painted, the rest of the surface is a
shimmering mosaic of different materials. The dress of the Virgin is
entirely made of golden and silver magete (the fifteenth-century sequins),
gold and silver threads; her hair also consists of golden threads. Mary and
the Christ Child are standing in a silk background, the whole image is set
into a beautifully carved wooden frame. The final result is strikingly
similar to late eighteenth-century Mexican feather paintings, in which
faces and hands of people were painted and not made of feathers. How
much more common and widespread were these kind of paintings? Did
they influence at least the Milanese audience in their reactions to and
reception of feather mosaics?
2008, I, 122-3.
70 ASF, Magalotti, 200, fol. 379.
71 On these works of art see now Carmignani 2009a and Carmignani 2009b.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE DISPLAY OF EXOTICA
IN THE UFFIZI TRIBUNA
ADRIANA TURPIN
The Tribuna, commissioned by Grand Duke Francesco I de Medici as an

octagonal room off the gallery of the Uffizi in Florence, was part of his
renewal and recreation of the architectural space originally designed by
Giorgio Vasari for his father Grand Duke Cosimo I to house the Florentine
magistrates offices.1 Intended as a showcase of the Medicean collections
and eventually accessible to the public, the room was completed by 1584
and the installation of the contents underway when Francesco suddenly
died in 1587. He had already begun to dismantle his private study, the socalled Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio, with plans to move items into the
new room.2 By 1589, when an inventory was taken of the contents of the
Tribuna for Francescos brother, Grand Duke Ferdinando I, the display of
the collections seems already to have been installed.3 The creation of the
Tribuna thus marks an important stage in the development of the grand
I would like to thank the participants of the Collecting and Display workshop in
July 2012 for their comments on this paper. I was also able to attend the
conference on the Tribuna held at the Kunsthistorisches Institut organised by
Alessandro Nova, Antonio Natali and Massimiliano Rossi.The essays covered the
iconography and purpose of the room as well as its decoration and restoration,
adding to my perception of the Tribuna in general. In particular, I benefitted from
hearing the paper by Luca Aquino on the craftsmen working on the furniture of the
Tribuna. I am also very grateful to Alexander Marr for his comments on the draft
of this essay.
1 Butters 2002, 67-75, quoted in Gldy 2009, 47-8.
2 The room was originally called the stanzino in contemporary literature, but has
been called the Studiolo since its restoration by Lensi. See Allegri and Cecchi
1980, 323-50; Conticelli 2007, 65-75 on the gradual dismantling of the Studiolo, in
particular on the transfer of some pieces by Francesco I to the the Tribuna, 65.
3 Gaeta Bertel 1997.
84
Chapter Five
dukes concepts of collecting and display; it was a further confirmation of

their use of art to express the power of the family and the rule of the grand
dukes through the highly-important works of art in the Medici collection.4
Given its importance, it is perhaps surprising that there has been so
little discussion of the significance of the display of the works of art in the
Tribuna. This is in marked contrast to the discussion of the architectural
framework and the overall iconography of the room, first formulated by
Detlef Heikamp in his essay, La Tribuna degli Uffizi come era nel
Cinquecento in 1964 or the research conducted on the contents.5 Partly
this may be a result of the difficulties inherent in re-creating a lost display,
in which some of the most important elements no longer exist.6 In
addition, although there is a complete inventory of the room from 1589,
transcribed and published by Giovanna Gaeta Bertel, that inventory was
taken two years after Francescos death.7 There can thus be no absolute
certainty as to whether the contents and arrangement reflected Francescos
intentions or reflect subsequent changes made by Ferdinando.8 Many of
4 Although the wardrobe of the Palazzo Vecchio was shown to visitors and the
private studies were often accessible as well, the Tribuna differs in that it was
neither a store room nor a study. In this, there are analogies with contemporary
kunstkammern of Ferdinand of Austria at Schloss Ambras, the Emperor Rudoph II
in Prague or Albrecht V of Bavaria, where their collections were displayed in
cupboards, chests or on tables in rooms especially created for the purpose and
where selected visitors might be taken to view the collections. The display in the
Tribuna and in the surrounding rooms and gallery of the Uffizi differs from these
collections in that they were not connected to the princes apartments.
5 Heikamp 1964, 11-30; id. 1983 461-541; id. 1998, 329-45. The papers at the
conference in Florence, November 2012 had many interesting suggestions as to the
meaning and iconography of the Tribuna as well as its place in the history of
contemporary Florentine collections.
6 The contents of the Tribuna had already changed by the time they were recorded
in the eighteenth century for the new Grand Duke, Francis Stephen of Lorraine.
Illustrations engraved in the 1750s for the guardian of the Uffizi, Giuseppe Bianchi
show five walls of the room including the wall with a cabinet on stand in the
central niche. The small sculptures were still displayed on the central row of
shelves, between which were placed the bronze sculptures from Francescos
Studiolo. However, the arched recesses had disappeared at some time prior to these
illustrations as had the works of art on the shelves and presumably in the mensole.
Furthermore, the paintings illustrated include some by seventeenth-century artists,
clearly reflecting a later arrangement of the paintings above and below the shelves.
See Heikamp 1983, 478-84 and figs. 56-9.
7 Gaeta Bertel 1997.
8 Massinelli 1990 discusses the creation of a large cabinet for the room, designed
by Buontalenti, with bronze plaques by Giovanni da Bologna. This was well
85
the items listed in the inventories have been traced and are now housed in
various museums in Florence.9 More, no doubt, could be done to trace
additional works of art originally displayed in the Tribuna; however, that
is not the aim of this essay, nor is this the place to consider many of the
important interpretations of the iconography and function of the
architectural space. Rather, it concentrates on one aspect: the analysis of
the arrangement and choice of the works of art in the Tribuna, arguing that
these reflect Francesco Is poitical aims in the creation of this new, more
public display of his collection.10 Furthermore it will be argued that both
the arrangement and display can be placed in the context of contemporary
discussions on aesthetics and wonder at the end of the sixteenth century,
which further underpin the message of harmony and order.
Significant to this discussion is the presence and absence of works of
art from the other worlds to the east and west, the exotica which formed
such an important part of many sixteenth-century collections. Some of the
collections of works of art from the East and West were to be found in the
Tribuna, but only very few. Most other works were placed in the rooms to
either side of the Tribuna, also part of the Uffizi display of the Medici
collections. Still others were left in the Guardaroba in Palazzo Vecchio or
displayed in the family and guest apartments. Because naturalia and
objects of curiosity formed an important part of the well-known kunst and
wunderkammern of northern collectors, in particular those connected to
the Habsburg dynasty, it is important to note their absence from the
display in the Tribuna. Those items of exotica that were displayed in the
Tribuna reflected a different purposelike the other works of art on
display, they were chosen for their materials or their ingenious
workmanship. The manner in which they were arranged also raises the
question as to whether there was an underlying choreography to the
display of the works of art, and how this related to the significance and
purpose of the Tribuna.
underway on Francescos death, but was changed and the elements re-used by
Ferdinando.
9 When the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was given to the Lorraine family, they
further dispersed the collections, dividing them between different museums
according to materials and history. Thus sculptures went to the Museo del
Bargello, antiquities to the Museo Archeologico, unmounted works to the Museo
di Minerologia and mounted works of art to the Museo degli Argenti.
10 See Olmi 1985, 10.
86
Chapter Five
The Sixteenth- century Medici Displays

The creation of the Tribuna was part of a narrative of carefully thought
out, highly sophisticated juxtaposition of display and philosophical
context, begun by Duke Cosimo I de Medici and developed by his sons. It
can thus be seen as an outcome of nearly seventy years of changing
displays, starting with the transformation under Duke Cosimo I of the
Palazzo Vecchio into a ducal palace, where a number of study rooms were
created.11 From Vasari we know that Cosimo selected the items for display
which were transferred to the most important of these, the Scrittoio of
Calliope.12 Completed in 1559, Vasari described the display on shelves
and in chests below the shelves, emphasising that they were shown con
bellissimo ordine.13 The display consisted not only of antique and modern
sculptures, but Etruscan works of art that had been excavated in Tuscany,
the purpose being to underpin Cosimo Is ambition for the title as Grand
Duke of Etruria which he ultimately obtained in 1569.14
At the same time, or shortly afterwards, Cosimo I ordered that a room
should be added to the Guardaroba in the Palazzo Vecchio. Now known as
the Sala delle Carte Geografiche or Maproom, this was conceived as a
show room as well as a store room.15 As Vasari describes it, Cosimo Is
intention was to create a new hall of some size, expressly as an addition
to the guardaroba [] in order to deposit in them [(the cupboards)] the
most important, precious and beautiful things that he possesses.16 The
cupboards were to be decorated with maps by Egnazio Danti, probably
following the Ptolomaic order of the world; Vasari states that there were to
be paintings of the related fauna and flora below the cupboards and
11 For the history and documentation of the Palazzo Vecchio see Allegri and
Cecchi, 1980. Vasari (Vasari-Milanesi 1878-85, VIII, 9-225) gives an account of
the rooms of the Palazzo Vecchio (pre-1574) in the Ragionamentisopra le
inventioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel palazzo di loro Altezze Serenissime (first
published posthumously in 1588).
12 Allegri and Cecchi 1980, 82. The transfer of objects to the new study is
recorded in ASF GM 30, 1553 (fols.33r and 33l; fol.48r) GM 37 (fols.13.v, 26r and
27v). See also Massinelli 1991, 20-1.
13 Vasari-Milanesi 1878-1885, VIII, 58-60.
14 See Gldy 2005, 699-709 for the interpretation of the Calliope study as a
Tuscan museum and the reconstruction of the display of the contents. See also
Massinelli 1997, 58.
15 For the most recent account of the function of the Guardaroba, see Zucchi
2011, 13-21. For a chronology of the Maproom, see Allegri and Cecchi 1980, 30313.
16 Vasari-Milanesi 1906, VII, 633-4.
87
portraits of illustrious men above.17 Thus it would appear that an

iconographic programme was created, possibly based on a play of
Cosimos name, to represent the universe, expressed in a visual form.18
According to the inventory of 1570, tapestries and textiles were listed as
being in the new room under the clock or maproom. However, it is not
certain whether the works of art from the collections were moved to the
Maproom or not, although they were still listed in the Guardaroba
documents in 1574.19
A more fully-developed iconographic programme was created by
Vincenzo Borghini and executed by Giorgio Vasari between 1570 and
1575 for Francesco, while crown prince, for his small study or stanzino in
the Palazzo Vecchio.20 Their correspondence in 1570 shows the detail with
which the programme, emphasising the unity of art and nature, was
conceived.21 Thus, the ceiling paintings show Prometheus as the giver of
fire to man, surrounded by four elements which are linked to the four
humours. Below, the panel paintings on the walls and cupboards
represented the wonders of the earth through depictions, primarily drawn
from classical mythology or Plinys Natural History.22 Various
reconstructions and interpretations have been proposed as to the original
placement of the panels;23 most recently Larry Feinberg has argued that
17 It seems that from the beginning the room was intended to represent the known
universe, centred on the armillary sphere by Lorenzo della Volpaia. In describing
the order of the paintings, it is clear that they were seen as relating to the globe:
poi come sentra dentro a man ritta tutta lEuropa in quattordici tavole e quadri,
una dreto allaltra fino al mezzo della facciata che a sommo dirimpetto alla porta
principale, nel qual mezzo s posto loriolo con le ruote e con le spere de pianeti
che giornalmente fanno entrando i loro moti; [] Disopra a questa tavola
lAffrica in undici tavole, fino a ditto oriolo; seguita poi di l dal ditto oriole
lAsia, nellordine da basso. Vasari-Milanesi 1888, VII, 633-4, quoted in
Heikamp 1970, 3-25 and Allegri and Cecchi 1980, 310.
18 For interpretations of the meaning of the Maproom, see Francesca Fiorani, who
argued that the contents of the cupboards should have reflected their geographic
location according to the maps on the doors. See Fiorani 2005, 74-8 and 80-92.
This suggestion has now been disproved, see Zucchi 2011, 201 and also Turpin
2006, 75-7.
19 Zucchi 2011, 6-13.
20 Berti (1967) 2002, 99-134. See Conticelli 2007 for the most recent analysis of
the Studiolo.
21 Frey 1923-30, II, 523, 534-55, 561 and 886-91.
22 Schaeffer 1976.
23 Because the room was completely dismantled, only the ceiling paintings
remained. The panels were found in the Attics of the Palazzo Vecchio and replaced
in the room in 1907. See Cecchi for the history of the room. See Rhinehart 1981,
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the arrangement of the panels could be re-organised so as to make a

coherent whole, with each wall containing related subjects and with each
pair of paintings linked between the upper register and cupboards.24 Thus
the south wall would have been dedicated to water, the north to earth,
while the two end walls portrayed air and fire. As Borghini described it,
the room should serve in part as a sign and a sort of inventory for finding
things by making the figures and painting that will be on top of and around
the cupboards allude in a certain way to what is preserved inside.25 Lina
Bolzoni therefore linked the function of the room to the theatre of
memory, arguing that Borghini may well have known the treatise by
Camillo, lIdea del Teatro.26 Feinberg may have been building on this
when he created a very compelling recreation of the room and its contents.
However, it should still be remembered that there was no inventory of the
Studiolo and thus no precise knowledge of the contents of each cupboard.
It might be possible to work backwards from the contents of the Tribuna to
suggest some of the works of art and jewels that might previously have
been housed in Francescos study, but other elements, particularly the
naturalia and exotica in the Medici collections do not appear in the
Tribuna, although it is possible that they had been kept in the Studiolo.
One further element in the background to the creation of the Tribuna
was the display created in the Casino di San Marco by Buontalenti, where
Duke Francesco had his collection presented in a gallery placed among his
workshops and laboratories.27 The inventory lists a rich collection of
works of art, many of them no doubt created in the workshops next door.
Here one finds the works of art so beloved by Francesco I: richly mounted
naturalia, such as ostrich eggs or rhinoceros horns, hardstone vases and
275-89 for one possible reconstruction, which allowed for the presence of two
unpainted panels in the position at which Francesco placed his desk.
24 Feinberg 2002.
25 Frey 1923-30, II 886-87 quoted in Bolzoni 2001, 246.
26 Published 1550 and 1559. See Bolzoni 270-81. The associations between
Camillos ideas as expressed in lIdea del Teatro and the representation of the
Medici collections arguably extended to other displays, for example the Sala delle
Carte geografiche. As Fiorani argues, there is a long association between
geographical order and the theatre of the world as a heuristic system; see Fiorani
2005, 89-92.
27 The Casino of San Marco was where Francesco originally placed his
workshops. Near the Piazza di San Marco, the workshops were also next door to
the botanical gardens and menagerie. It is open to question whether any works of
art from the collection in the Casino of San Marco were displayed originally in the
Studiolo.
89
some items of exotica such as furniture, feather-work bedcovers or nuts.28

The collection, however, was bequeathed to Francescos natural son, Don
Antonio, so none of the objects would have been found in the Tribuna,
although clearly some of the contents were very similar.29 At the Casino of
San Marco, the inventory lists objects placed next to each other, ranging
from many bronzes and sculptures but including some mounted shells,
boxes and other objects from the Indies and indeed many of the same type
that were found on the shelves of the Tribuna. The inventory lists the
objects but does not describe the display, although we know that there
were shelves in the gallery on which many of them must have been placed.
The Iconography of the Tribuna

The Tribuna was created as a setting to present the glories of the Medici
collections selected for display in this octagonal space.30 Designed by
Buontalenti, the ceiling was covered in mother of pearl, the entablature
between the walls and ceiling in blue mosaic and mother of pearl rinceaux
ornament; the walls were clad in red velvet and the floor was of pietre
dure. Originally there were also paintings on the baseboards by Ligozzi
representing fish, water, plants and stones.31 There were ebony shelves on
each wall,32 with an arched recess above each of the shelves; below the
shelves were other shelves on which were placed part of the collections:
for example bronze and marble sculpture and works of art in precious
materials. On each side of the entrance there was a large cupboard, which
contained further works of art, while in the centre of the room was a large
octagonal cabinet, also containing precious objects. Finally, as described
by Francesco Bocchi (1514-1618), on the ground level in the corners, that
is, at the edges of the walls, there are eight marble statues of noble
28 ASF GM 136; see Massinelli and Tuena 1992, 230-2 for a transcript of the
inventory taken in 1587.
29 On Don Antonios death in 1603, the works of art were bequeathed to Grand
Duke Ferdinando and thus were retained by the Medici family.
30 Heikamp 1997, 335.
31 Heikamp 1963, 245, quoting ASF GM 114, fol.158r, where payments are made
for painting a frieze around the cupola as the room seems to be called in the
accounts of 1586; pittori e macinatore a dipigniere il fregio attorno alla cupola pi
sorte uccielli, pesci, acqua, piante, sassi, niche e pi cose; macinar colori e altro
per detta.
32 ASF GM 113, fol. 161v gives payments to Master Dionigi di Matteo,
woodworker for these;see Heikamp 1963, 245.
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workmanship, much admired and esteemed by the artists.33

Although there is no precise description of the iconography of the
Tribuna by its creators of the kind that Vasari had written for the
Maproom and the Studiolo in Palazzo Vecchio, the near-contemporary
description by Francesco Bocchi in Le Bellezze della citt di Fiorenza
(written in 1591) provides some indication of its purpose.34 In Bocchis
account the decoration of the Tribuna is described in great detail. From
Bocchi, we know that the walls were decorated in colours reflecting the
four elements and that there were paintings representing fish, water, plants
and stones;35 the Tribuna thus continues the tradition of representing the
cosmos or universe, begun in the Sala delle Carte Geografiche and
continued in Francescos Studiolo in the Palazzo Vecchio. Indeed the
octahedron itself was the Platonic body representative of air and formed
part of the micro and macro-structure of the Universe.36 Bocchi also refers
to the intended connection with the winds: one sees a certain sign
indicating a certain direction. When the wind blows from a given
direction, it turns a wind vane outside. He then goes on to explain that at
certain times each year, the light comes through a central oculus, so that
one understands the course of the planets and the motions of the heavens
and the stars.37 As Heikamp has argued, this links it to the Tower of
Andronicus, otherwise known as the Tower of the Winds in Athens, which
is was also octagonal in shape.38 This famous monument was used by
33 Bocchi 1591, translated and edited by Frangenberg and Williams 2006. Bocchi
had acted as secretary and agent to Ferdinando de Medici in Rome from 1572-82.
He then returned to Florence, where he was a tutor to young noblemen;
Frangenberg and Williams 2006, 10. For a full list of Bocchis writings see Menchi
1969, XI, 72-4 [consulted at www.treccani.it on 18 August 2012].
34 Frangenberg and Williams 2006.
35 These, as Heikamp notes, were repainted in the nineteenth century. He also
notes that there are tiny areas of the baseboard that appear in the corners of
Zoffanys painting of the Tribuna.
36 Cf. Platos Timaeus, quoted in Schmidt-Biggemann 2005, 311. A further reason
for the number eight might possibly be linked with the revival of interest in
Pythagorean numbers: Difference is the prerequisite of harmony as well as of
numbers. For the Pythagoreans and the Pythagorean interpretation of numbers in
the Renaissance the four is of decisive importance. It has a whole range of
symbolic meanings. Doubling, the ability to multiply by ones own numerical
value is called potency.
37 Frangenberg and Williams 2006, 70. The presence of the wind vane as well as
the paintings of the zodiac indicate that the Tribuna also had an astrological and
perhaps alchemical meaning for Francesco.
38 Heikamp 1998, 335.
91
Vitruvius in Chapter VI of De Architectura to prove that there were indeed

eight and not four winds and he mentions the Triton on the lantern that
served as a weathervane to detect the prevailing wind.39 Vitruvius then
goes on to advise that the perfect city should be built in such a way as to
alleviate the potential damage done by harmful winds and thus provide the
inhabitants with a healthy environment in which to live. The town should
be divided into eight sections radiating from the centre; this too is
followed in the Tribuna, where a large octagonal cabinet, called the
Tempietto, was placed in the centre of the room. A possible interpretation
is thus that the shape of the Tribuna is itself an allusion to the good order
and unity of Florence under the Medici, not just a symbol of Medici power
as generally proposed.40
Further proof of the link between the Tower of the Winds and
contemporary political messages is found in the choice by Pope Gregory
XIII (reigned 15711585) of the same ancient source for one of his
building projects. In the 1580s a Tower of the Winds was created in the
Belvedere Courtyard by the architect Ottavio Mascharino and the
mathematician Egnazio Danti, the erstwhile cartographer of the Sala delle
Carte Geografiche in the Palazzo Vecchio. As with the Tribuna, this had
an astronomical purpose.41 Nicola Courtright has convincingly argued that
the building was created and decorated to identify Gregory as a reforming
ruler bringing the Church back to its original purpose.42 Francesco may
well have intended the Tribuna to reflect this contemporary allusion to
papal display of power in addition to its illustrious classical associations.
Moreover in the Vatican, Danti linked the Tower to the Maproom he was
completing for the pope, just as Francesco created the Tribuna as a
continuation of the great Maproom.43
Bocchi stated that the purpose of the display was to produce such
magnificent splendour that the eye could not find a more regal view, nor
could the mind conceive of any more precious adornment.44 He went on
to explain,
39 See Vitruvius, translated by Smith 2003, 77.
40 Heikamp links the representation of the universe in the symbolism of the
Tribuna as an allegory of the political power of the Medici. See Heikamp 1998,
335. Through the associations with art and nature he links it to the concept of the
Wunderkammer, which is taken up by Massinelli 1997, 74.
41 Courtright 2003, 70-83.
42 Ibid., 68 and 70-83.
43 For a discussion of Gregory XIIIs Gallery of Maps, see among others, Fiorani
2005, 171-207.
44 Bocchi 1591, 56; Frangenberg and Williams 2006, 71.
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Since humankind has a great desire to enjoy the sight of the works produce
by such noble and sublime intellects, the Grand Duke has permitted to the
supervisors of these objects to accommodate those who want to see them.
Thus one can view them as carefully as one pleases. In the Gallery one
sees these figures more comfortably than in public squares [].
Already the emperors and the Roman nobles had this same
praiseworthy and honourable idea. In order to escape the accusation of
greed and jealousy for keeping the wonderful art works of painting and
sculpture within their private houses, they placed them in public places for
the benefit of others.45
This accords with and supports the view that the Tribuna was intended to
display the power, prestige and history of the Medici family. However, the
use of the specific term asks for an explanation: generally it has been
assumed that the usage comes from its shape, as the tribune was the term
used for the semi-circular or semi-octagonal shape at the end of a
basilica.46 It was a shape that also had specific Florentine associations:
Brunelleschis dome for Santa Maria dei Fiori, the Cathedral of Florence
as well as the tribuna of Sta Maria Annunziata.47 These are important
references and may very well reflect the status of the room as a treasure
chamber. However, the classical meaning of the term tribune should also
be considered: as the platform from which the representatives of the
people could speak in the Senate. Thus, when Bocchi concludes his
account with the statement, Marcus Agrippa was so passionate in this
respect that he delivered a very committed speech demanding that all
paintings and sculptures be exhibited in public, we are led to the tribuna
of the ancient Romans.48 Thus the term Tribuna can also be seen as
referring to or connected with a concept with which Francesco was very
familiar, namely that of the collection as theatre. Camillos theatre of
memory, arguably a source of inspiration for Vincenzo Borghinis concept
of Francescos Studiolo, remained part of the Medicean discourse of the
45 Ibid.
46 The idea of the space and the name was that the room (which originally had a
single entrance) had the character of a chapel and formed a sort of Holy of Holies
within the palace.[www.RoyalCollectionsWebsite/Zoffany/Tribuna, consulted 20
June 2012].
47 Buontalenti also used it later for the design of the Capella dei Principi, the new
funerary chapel for the Medici at San Lorenzo.
48 Since Agrippa (64/63BC12BC) was famous for having commissioned the
original [i.e.not the present Hadrianic] Pantheon, there may have been a specific
reference intended, not just to his patronage but to the role of the Pantheon as a
place to display statues of the gods and thus in some ways a forerunner of the
gallery of classical statuary.
93
display of treasures.49 The idea of connecting literature and visual display

is summed up in the famous comment by Galileo in his Considerazioni al
Tasso, thought to have been written between 1589 and 1592.50 In
criticising Tassos Gerusalemme liberata, Galileo describes it as a mere
study of some curious little man as opposed to the magnificent, rich and
wonderful poem by Ariosto, which famously he describes as:
a wardrobe open, a tribune, a royal gallery adorned by a hundred ancient
statues by the most famous sculptors, with infinite complete stories, and
the best by illustrious poets, with a vast number of vases, of crystals, agates
lapis lazuli and other jewels, and in sum filled with rare, precious and
wonderful things, all excellent.51
The Display of the Contents of the Tribuna

It was not only the choice of objects that concerned the Medici but the
ways in which they were arranged. In previous displays the concept of
con bellissimo ordine had been an integral part of the Medicean
approach to the choice and arrangement of the works of art.52 Thus it
seems only logical to search for an underlying meaning to the organisation
and arrangement of the works of art on display in the Tribuna. Based on
the descriptions in the 1589 inventory, we are given the physical
placement of the works of art as well as, presumably, the order in which
they were set out on shelves or in the room.53 In addition, illustrations
from the eighteenth century, in spite of the changes that had taken place,
provide some residual account of the placement of paintings, shelves and
sculptures (Fig. 21).54 As can be seen through the detailed examination of
49 Bolzoni 1980. Bolzoni argues that the Theatre of Memory by Camillo formed
the basis of Vincenzo Borghinis concept of Francescos studiolo. Also see
Bolzoni 2001 for further discussion of the relationship between literary and
physical descriptions of the gallery, 236-59.
50 The discussion on the merits of Ariosto versus Tasso was one of the issues
debated in Francescos circles. See Mirollo 1999, 33-5; Bolzoni 2001, 207-13.
51 Bolzoni 2001, 209; Barocchi 1983, footnote 52, 59-60.
52 See Gldy 2009a (2002), xxiii-iv.
53 The surviving illustrations, showing the sculptures on the shelves and paintings
give only a fraction of an idea of the plethora of works of art shown, as all the
small objects were removed in the eighteenth century and rehoused in other
museums, such as the Museo degli Argenti, Museo Archeologico or the Museo
Nazionale del Bargello.
54 As well as the engravings and drawings mentioned previously (see note 6) there
were other visual records of the Tribuna including notes by Sir Roger Newdigate
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the placement of the works of art on the walls and shelves, their
disposition was complex and rich.
Figure 21: Drawing by Benedetto de Greyss for the seventh wall of the Tribuna
Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (photo: author with authorisation).
and a painting of the Tribuna, still in the family collection. See Heikamp 334-5.
95
The overall concept was similar to that already used by Francesco and his
father: shelves, small drawers under the shelves, chests and cupboards.
The additional use of recessed arches to display objects was an innovation,
perhaps taken from the display of antique sculptures in niches as for
example at the Belvedere in Rome. The inventory begins with the
description of the mensole, which were below the shelves or palchetti.55
Bocchi clearly described objects as being placed underneath each corbel
of the lower shelf which might suggest some form of open display.
However, as Masinelli proposed and as has been confirmed by recent
research, the mensole were most probably the drawers illustrated in the
drawings by de Greyss prepared for Giovanni Bianchi.56 In this lower
section were displayed the majority of the non-European works of art or
what might be considered curiosities; primarily the small daggers
described as Germani or dommaschino but occasionally other small
items such as a small nugget of gold venute dellIndie(141) or small
hanging cup in mother of pearl (229).57 Other items that may have been
non-European include a small nicchia of mother-of-pearl with a large
hanging pearl, found in the twelfth mensole (206) and some of the ebony
objects, which included knife handles as well as small boxes.
The order is not according to material or type, as in the Scrittoio of
Calliope, nor an extensive display of skillfully wrought, beautiful works of
art as in the Casino of San Marco, but consists of small sculpture and
small paintings framed in ebony (some of these were miniature portraits),
and in each at least one of the swords and daggers described by Bocchi. In
this lower display there is a variety and rhythm of order as described in the
inventory: in the second drawer, for example, two bronze sculptures were
followed by a small dagger with a tortoiseshell handle and its decorated
sheath, followed by three small paintings, a small hardstone shell and a
55 Gaeta Bertel 1997, 3-22. In the inventory the objects are often called vasetto,
quadrettino or testa dun puttino antica which suggests that the items were
small. The measurements of 2/5 of a braccio [a Florentine braccio was the
equivalent of c.18 inches or 5/8 of a braccio would confirm this. However some of
the paintings were 3/4 x 3/5, which is somewhat larger.
56 Massinelli 1997, 65. In the inventory for the Calliope study, the small drawers
were called cassette. There is still some room for confusion as in the de Greyss
illustrations, paintings are hung below the main shelves so if there were any small
objects hanging under the shelves, they have disappeared. I am grateful to Lucia
Aquino for confirming that in her opinion, the mensole were definitely drawers and
to Valentina Conticelli for discussing this with me before the Tribuna conference
at the Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence (2012).
57 This cup is discussed by Scalini 1997, 118.
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bronze sculpture of Diana.58

There were originally niches in the walls, above the shelves, on each of
the six sides of the octagon between the entrance and the far wall, which
instead contained a large cabinet on stand. The six arched niches no longer
appear in the engravings but the cabinet is still to be seen.59 Each niche,
which contained primarily bronzes and some hardstone vases, also
included one of the silver sculptures of the Labours of Hercules by
Giambologna in the display.60
On the main shelves, sculptures, both classical and modern, were
intermingled with various works of art. The shelves on the six walls were
divided by the large bronzes from the Studiolo, Ops, Juno, Apollo,
Galatea, Vulcan and Amphitrite. The shelves were marked on either end
by a small wooden guglietta, a turret or stand with shelves, each of which
contained a number of small items, almost always four small bronze or
silver sculptures and two hardstone vases. It has been suggested that these
towers were invented by Buontalenti himself.61 There were twelve of these
towers, which with the now-lost niches were used as points of definition
for the display as it is described in the inventory. Further points of
attention were created by the elaborate, small mountains in metal with
bronze figures, such as Hercules and the lion or small figures working the
mountain; a figure with a spade in his hand; two others showed scenes of
the Resurrection. These were displayed on silver bases (Fig. 22).
Their disposition on the shelves varies, however, in that they were
always placed very close either to the arch or to a tower. Interestingly
there are no mountains on the far left hand side of the Tribuna as described
in the inventory, perhaps here, the highly-elaborated ebony ball with the
portraits of William, duke of Bavaria (454) replaced it while close to the
58 This arrangement of two to four sculptures, followed by a sword or dagger and
then a number of small paintings, with a small exotic object at irregular intervals is
given in the inventory description for each of the twenty mensole. The display
might have less meaning if the objects were placed in drawers; however, they still
could be seen by the visitor, who after all was given a chair to assist him in the
detailed appreciation of the contents of the room and clearly Bocchi considered
them as part of the display.
59 The present cabinet is a later version created in the seventeenth century; see
Massinelli 1990, 111-4 and Heikamp 1998 340-3.
60 Massinelli states that the statues were above the arches but in the inventory this
is not explicit; they are simply listed among the contents of each arch, so perhaps
they were placed on the top shelf. In either case, they must have stood out and
created a splendid vision of Giambolognas skill as well as the precious nature of
the silver itself; Massinelli 1997, 66.
61 Ibid.
97
door, very near the end of the procession of objects, was a mountain in
mother-of-pearl (457). One of the most elaborate pieces, a serpentine
dragon supporting a crystal salt surmounted by a small silver figure
holding the reins of the dragon in his hand (no 369), would seem to have
been displayed on one side of the fourth arch while on the other side,
almost equidistant was a dolphin in chalcedony (376). What seems to be
clearer is that the striking close combination of tower and mountain was to
be found on both sides of the central cabinet.
Figure 22 A Silver Mountain of the Resurrection and Adoration, second half of the
sixteenth century, from the workshop of Concz Welcz (1532-1555). Originally in the
collection of Ferdinand II of Tyrol at Ambras this suggests the type of object described
in the inventory of the Tribuna (photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).
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The works of art that could be called exotic, either because of their
material or provenance, were extremely rare.62 On these upper shelves,
there were some ten clearly identifiable non-European objects: among
them were, for example, a vase in tortoiseshell mounted in silver from the
Indies (270), an earthenware vase dellIndie (274), a rhinoceros horn
cup (Fig. 23) (308), a bowl in tortoiseshell (339), two balls of transparent
tortoiseshell (356), a small box in engraved tortoiseshell ( 389). Also to be
found were small balls of mother of pearl. One of the grandest items
would appear to have been an elaborately mounted ostrich egg (380) with
mounts by del Marchionni, described in the inventory as a German.63
Some of the exotica were found in the wooden turrets: for example a
mother-of-pearl snail decorated in silver (316), while others were
displayed in the arches. In the fifth arch, two small bowls are described as
being in mother-of-pearl (408),64 while a small jade Aztec sculpture has
been indentified with one described as a bust of an idol of chalcedony
draped in a cape placed in the sixth arch of the Tribuna (Fig. 24).
Figure 23: A Chinese rhinoceros horn cup with Florentine mounts, late sixteenth
century, inv. Bg IV n.7m, Museo degli Argenti, Florence (photo: Soprintendenza
Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo
Museale della citt di Firenze).
62 Not all the descriptions of the works of art are clear as to whether they are
European or not. In the list of exotica (see Appendix) items of naturalia that could
come from non-European countries have been included.
63 Gaeta Bertel 1998, 32.
64 Morena 2010, 140-3.
99
The exotic works of art acted in conjunction with the European works of
art, providing a form of counterpoint within the display of sculptures
alongside the small hardstone. Thus bronze and marble sculptures were
grouped often in threes or in fours but then interspersed with either an object
in hardstone, worked ivory or silver, very occasionally, an object in
tortoiseshell or mother-of-pearl; most dramatic were the silver mountains
that appeared on every shelf. Only at one point, on the long shelf between
the sixth tower and seventh towers, was to be found a grouping of naturalia
and exotica. Here, next to the silver mountain, was displayed in turn, a small
branch of coral (338), then the small tortoiseshell box from the Indies (339)
followed by four bronzes. Two items beyond the coral branch, on the other
side of the silver mountain, was listed a sculpture of a small Cupid in coral
(335), suggesting that colour too played a role in the display.
Figure 24: A small Aztec idol in jade, Museo degli Argenti, Florence (photo: see
Figure 23).
On either side of the door into the Tribuna was a large cupboard, each of
which was filled with the great works of art in hardstone produced during
Francescos reign, works in rock crystal, jasper, agate, chalcedony and
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even topaz in various forms. Among the items listed, two were in mother
of pearl: one is not given a provenance while one is specifically mentioned
as decorated allindiana.65 One further example of an exotic work was a
mounted coconut (499). However, it is worth noting that none of the
mounted shells still surviving today were displayed in the Tribuna but, as
far as can be traced, were in the Casino of San Marco.66 The contents of
the cupboards primarily served to display the marvellously worked objects
that Francesco so admired, and which were valued as supreme examples of
art and nature. It was these objects that, although hidden from view, were
described by Bocchi and Raffaello Borghini in terms of their marvellous
workmanship.
Hanging above the shelves was a selection of paintings, presumably
selected to show the status of Florentine art. The series began with
Raphaels portrait of Pope Leo and the two cardinals above the door, then
eight paintings by Andrea del Sarto, seven by Raphael including one of the
Madonna with Christ, St. John, St. Anne and other saints; Leonardos St
John the Baptist, Giorgiones Saint John, three by Pontormo including a
Woman Seated with a Book in her Hand and The Conversion of St Paul.
Very few contemporary artists work appeared in the hangingonly those
by Ligozzi and Federigho Fiammingho (probably Federico Sustris). The
choice of the most famous artists who had worked in Florence from the
previous generation appears to have been in marked contrast to the
employment of contemporary artists in Francescos study.67
To complete the display, Francesco ordered a large octagonal central
cabinet, designed by Buontalenti, described as a studiolo in Bocchi and
the Tempietto in the bills, to be placed in the centre of the room.68 The
cabinet was particularly commented on by Bocchi in 1591, who described
65 Gaeta Bertel 1997, 52: Item 608 is described as una tazza a uso di calice di
diaspora venuta dellIndie, lavorata scanalata stretti, guarnita dargento dorato
allindiana, segnata(sic) in fondo n 11, n. 1.
66 For example, the shell cups, nos. BgV, no2; the double nautilus pitcher, bgV,
n23, two Chinese shells mounted in Paris, nos. BgV 20 and 25 were all transferred
from the Casino of San Marco in 1618 at the death of Don Antonio; Gregori and
Heikamp 1997, 119-22.
67 It is interesting to note that the same selection of artists appeared in
Ferdinandos collections in the Villa Medici as can be seen from the inventory
transcribed in Cecchi and Gasparri 2009, IV, 434-41. I would like to thank Susan
Bracken for this information.
68 Bocchi 1591, 54. Heikamp 1963, 246. Heikamp cites bills to various workmen
on the cabinet from 1584-1594: ASF GM 112 and 113. Buontalentis drawing for
the base of the first cabinet survives and the second cabinet as completed was
drawn by Giuseppe Bianchi in the 1750s.
101
the dome of precious stones, tiles of lapis lazuli, jasper and agate, above
which was a small lantern surmounted by a globe of chrysolite. The doors
to the cabinet were inlaid in wood and semi-precious stones inside which
there were compartments for most beautiful medals of gold, silver and
bronze and ancient gems, and cameos of rare workmanship, made of agate,
sapphire, amethyst, and all the other precious stones which can be carved
in convex or concave form.69
The contents of the Tribuna would therefore seem specifically to
emphasise the highly-prized classical sculptures, which were to be
compared with the works of art and paintings by the greatest Florentine
artists. The intention was to arouse admiration from the viewer, who
should marvel at mans skills. In particular Bocchi states that the purpose
was to show that Art and nature in a certain way compete in creating the
most precious beauty and the most sublime piece of craftsmanship.70 The
choice of works on display thus combined art and nature either through the
materials in which they were made or through their subject matter.71 The
works of art from the East and the West were equally present as examples
of the very greatest value and workmanship brought here from the
Indies.72 Neither nature nor works from beyond Europe were presented in
their raw forms but as works of art enhanced by the skill of man.73 The
Tribuna was not the place for the Aztec featherworks or natural curiosities,
even though they caused admiration for their workmanship or rarity.74 Nor
was it the place for the highly-prized collections of porcelains, including
the extensive collection of Chinese porcelains that traditionally formed an
important part of the Medici collections from the time of Lorenzo il
Magnifico.75 The almost entire absence from the Tribuna of this type of
69 Bocchi 1591, 54; Frangenberg and Williams 2006, 68.
70 Ibid., 70.
71 Among the statuettes were many satyrs or fauns, animals and dolphins, the
inclusion of which argues that nature in antiquity was also represented in the
display. Thus in the fourth arch, the sculptures included a baboon, a crab and a
dolphin.
72 Frangenberg and Williams 2006, 28. Bocchi here was in fact referring to a bed
in the Casino of San Marco.
73 It is worth noting, moreover, that even though there were mounted natural
objects displayed in the Tribuna, there was no comparison in number to the
quantity found in the Casino of San Marco. Among surviving objects that have
been indentified as being in the Casino are the engraved double nautilus shell or
nautilus salt cellar today in the Museo degli Argenti, illustrated in Massinelli and
Tuena 1992, 129 and 130.
74 See among others the essay by Gallori in this volume.
75 Spallanzani 1994, 43, 55-8. Spallanzani has shown the difficulties of
102
Chapter Five
exotica is significant in determining that the character of the Tribuna was

very different from that expressed in the previous displays in the
Guardaroba or in Francescos Casino of San Marco.76
Instead, some of the naturalia, such as the crocodile, fish teeth or
skeletons presumably remained in the old Guardaroba. Other items from
both the new and old worlds were probably placed in special rooms on
either side of the Tribuna.77 The two rooms north of the Tribuna contained
the mathematical instruments while to the south, four rooms held the
collections of arms.78 The Armoury contained African horns, such as the
one today in the Ethnological Museum, Florence, with the Medici-Toledo
arms, many examples of Turkish metalwork and armour and most
probably the Aztec feather robes.79 Many of these items had been gifts and
thus served as visual representations of the Medici connections to the
determining the difference between the Chinese and Italian porcelains in Cosimos
collections and the same seems to have been true of the descriptions of porcelains
in Ferdinandos collections: ibid., 95-7. Some indication of what the collections of
Oriental ceramics might have been can be indicated by the surviving pieces in
Dresden from Ferdinandos diplomatic gift to the Elector in 1590. The ceramics
seem to have been kept in the both Francesco and Ferdinandos Guardaroba,
which perhaps suggests they might have been used for displays or banquets. Thus,
although there are even some surviving today in the collections of the Museo degli
Argenti that most probably have a provenance dating back to Lorenzo de Medici,
we cannot be certain. What is certain is that there were a significant number of
Chinese blue and white porcelain and celadons in Cosimo Is collections, in
Francescos and even more in Ferdinandos. Spallanzani estimates that Ferdinando
had 450 pieces of Chinese porcelain, for example ibid., 118.
76 Although is it is highly probable that the Maproom and Studiolo would have
contained exotic works of art, as there are no precise accounts of the contents of
the cupboards in these rooms, it cannot be ascertained which objects were
displayed in these rooms. It may very well be that some of the hardstone vases and
works of art in the Tribuna cupboards, for example, came from the Studiolo, but
there is no concrete evidence. The same is true of works of art not displayed in the
Tribuna.
77 This does not account for the works of art in the Casino of San Marco, where
Bocchi noted pictures made of precious marbles, tables of jasper, fabrics woven
with extraordinary workmanship and a bed of the very greatest value and
workmanship brought here from the Indies. Frangenberg and Williams 2006, 28.
78 For further discussion of the arms and armour in the Medici collection, Gldy
2009b, 37-57.
79. Barocchi and Gaeta Bertel 2002, I, 357-61, in particular 360-61. The Uffizi
gallery was inventoried in 1597, when the contents of the Armoury were listed.
See Heikamp, 1983, 505-6 where he lists the feather capes as being in the armoury;
Gldy 2009b, 52.
103
Habsburgs of Spain and Austria.80 The political significance of the exotic

was made even more explicit in the ceiling paintings of the fourth room of
the Armoury, where Lorenzo Buti painted scenes of the battles against the
AmerIndians or Turks.81 Therefore it would seem that admiration of both
beauty and skill as well as possible political associations could form part
of the context in which these works were meant to be seen.82
Were the Mexican feather work-capes or turquoise masks, most of
which had been in the Medici collections since the time of Cosimo I, also
housed in the Armoury? These works of art, which had appeared first in
1550 in the collections of Cosimo I,83 were apparently kept in the
Guardaroba until the end of the sixteenth century and not transferred by
Francesco into any of his displays.84 In the Medici inventories between
1550 and 1574 they were often described as abiti di maschera, implying
that they were seen as form of costume, either for theatrical performances
or for the processions which accompanied them.85 Masks were found, for
example, in various mascherate, the stage performances that formed part
of the Medici celebrations for births or marriages.86 Whether this referred
80 Francesco had been sent to the court of Philip II of Spain where he lived with
his brother Ferdinando until he was seven and he later married the daughter of the
Austrian emperor, Joanna of Austria.
81 Heikamp 1983, 505-6 and Gldy 2009b, 52.
82 See Keating and Markey 2011, 285 for further discussion of the significance of
New World objects to the Medici rulers.
83 ASF, GM 28, fol. 42r: Una maschera venuta dellIndia composta di turchine
sopra il legno; Turpin 2006, 70; Keating and Markey 2011, 299.
84 Turpin, 2006, 82-4; Keating and Markey 2011, 289-91.
85 ASF, GM 65, fol. 248r. Due maschera di Legno coperte di turchine poste dare
in conto dabiti et alter cose da mascherare in questo. ASF, GM 65, fol. 327v,
Habiti e Altre Cose Da Mascherate: Due Mascherdi legno coperte di turchine
post dare di conti di robe piu sorte. Earlier the feather capes were also included as
habiti da mascherate. ASF, GM 7, fol. 26v; Turpin 2006, 74.
86 See Nagler 1964, 42 who cites the third intermedio of the performance of I
Fabii, 1569 designed by Baldassare Lanci for the celebration for the christening of
Francescos eldest daughter; Buontalenti designed the costumes for this
production. The subject of the Intermedio was the Clouds and Winds: the North
Winds were masked as old men, the West winds as young men; the South winds
had wrinkled, chubby faces while the East winds had white masks. Although the
use of masks was not uncommon in Renaissance theatre, this was one of the few
scenes in operas between 1550-1600 in which the entire group on stage was
masked.
104
Chapter Five
Figure 25: Detail of a Buontalenti drawing showing a mask on console, GDS

Uffizi, Florence (photo: author with authorisation).
to the way in which the masks were categorised within the Guardaroba or
whether the masks were in fact ever used is impossible to tell. A later
reference in the 1595 inventory taken for Grand Duke Ferdinando is to a
Mask in mosaic allIndiana broken which may mean that the mask had
indeed been actually been used in some way. It is tempting to believe that
it might have been worn at some point; however, Keating and Markey also
point out that Philip II ordered certain Aztec and Mexican works to be
destroyed, so the mask might have been purposely damaged.87 If not used
directly in performances, the masks may have been seen as a physical
reality of drawings and engravings of Indians in their headdresses, most
famously by Cornelis Bos.88 In the Tribuna, masks appear on the consoles
87 ASF, GM 190, fol. 125v; quoted in Keating and Markey 2011, 291 and 299.
88 See Ducos 1969, 57-64, where he discusses the transference of iconography
from New World headdresses to the ancient world, arguing for examples that the
105
supporting the shelves. Buontalenti was clearly interested in the mask as

seen in one of his studies, perhaps for the Tribuna (Fig. 25), while in his
designs for the Intermedi for the performance of La Pellegrina in 1589, he
presents figures in something very close to Indian feather headdresses and
mask.
The fact that most of the Medici treasures from the East and the West
were not present in the Tribunanor the naturalia and mathematical
instrumentsindicates that these objects were not seen only as objects of
curiosity. While they might cause admiration based on their origins or
their rarity, the Medici seem to have gone beyond these considerations to
bring other associations to their collections of exotic works of art: the
masks could be part of the presentation of plays and costumes while
swords, daggers and Indian featherwork formed part of the display in the
armoury, as representations of family connections and power.
The Use of Wonder in the Tribuna

The distribution of exotica in the Medici collections by the 1590s would
suggest that the new display created by Francesco differed in its
iconography both from that of his Studiolo or the Gallery of the Casino of
San Marco. The choice of content, with its emphasis on skill and
ingenuity, and its exclusion of objects that might be seen as curious or
unknown, would seem to have been deliberate. In describing the Tribuna,
Bocchi uses maraviglioso (sic!) to describe technical skill of the works
displayed and describes in great detail some of the most intricate and
ingenious works, such as the carved ebony ball with the portraits on ivory
of Duke William of Bavaria and his wife.89 Describing the objects in such
terms is reminiscent of Vasaris use of marvellous to describe works that
cause wonder through admiration. Thus in the account of the painting of
the Sistine Chapel, Vasari discusses wonder in these terms:
And it is impossible to describe adequately all the many features of the
figures in this section of Michelangelos work: the draperies, the
expressions of the heads and the innumerable original and extraordinary
fancies, all most brilliantly conceived; every detail reflects Michelangelos
genius; all the figures are skillfully and beautifully foreshortened; and
models for Cornelis Bos could be derived as much from the Golden House of Nero
as from contemporary engravings of AmerIndians. See also Mason 1994, 135-72
for a discussion of the superimposition of concepts and representations of the New
World with the Ancient.
89 Bocchi 1591, 52.
106
Chapter Five
every single feature is manifestly inspired and beyond praise.90
The arousal of wonder from art that surpassed nature through its ingenuity
or through its use of the unexpected was an important part of the
discussions determining aesthetic values that had taken place throughout
the sixteenth century. The tradition and importance of wonder as a concept
in European thought has been extensively discussed.91 Of particular
interest for the analysis of the display in the Tribuna is the literary
criticism of the marvellous. Based on Aristotle in the Metaphysics and
Poetics and in particular following the discovery of Aristotles Poetics in
the 1540s, sixteenth-century humanists were concerned to explain the
various ways in which Aristotle defined expression, much concerned with
the question of imitation.92 The element of wonder is required in
Tragedy Aristotle argued, because the unexpected makes men marvel
even if the events have an explanation or purpose. In poetry wonder was
even more important and effective since, the irrational, on which the
wonderful depends for its chief effects, has wider scope in epic poetry,
because there the person acting is not seen.93 As James Mirollo suggests,
sixteenth-century writers developed Aristotles concept of the marvellous
through the poets skill with language, so that surprise came through the
introduction of the unexpected.94 Aristotles argument that wonder was a
literary device to create surprise is of particular importance in relation to
the ordering of the objects on the shelves and arguably underpins the
display of the Tribuna; the marvellously wrought works of art and the
turrets were placed on the shelves to punctuate the display of statues,
90 Vasari-Milanesi 1881, VII, 179: Nel partimento non ha usato ordini di
prospettive che scortino, n v veduta ferma; ma ito accomodando pi il
partimento alle figure, che le figure al partimento, bastanto condurre gli ignudi
evestiti con perfezione di disegno, che no si pu n fare s fatto mai opera, ed
appena con fatica s pu imitare il fatto. Questa opera stata et veramente la
lucerna dellarte nostra, che ha fatto tanto giovamente e lume allarte della pittura,
che ha bastato a illuminare il monde, per tante centinaia danni in tenebre stato. E,
nel vero, non curi pi chi pittore di vedere novit ed invenzioni ed attitudini,
abbigliamenti addosso a figure, modi nuovi daria, e terribilit di cose varimente
dipinte; perch tutta quella perfezione che si pu dare a cosa che in tal magisterio
si faccia, a questa ha dato.
91 Platt 1999 in particular the essays by Mirollo 1999, 24-44 and Summers, 45-75.
For an account of the European tradition of wonder, see Daston and Park 1998.
92 Mirollo 1999, 29-30; Frangenberg and Williams 2006.
93 Aristotle, Poetics, part 24, 1460b. For an English translation see AristotleButcher 1850-1910.
94 Mirollo 1999, 32-3.
107
providing the pause and effect that Aristotle described as essential for poetry
to be effective. Buontalentis turrets seem to have provided the strongest
accent, with lesser effects created by repeated mountains of silver ore, the
occasional small, decorative object, a few carefully-placed mounted
objectsand occasionally a work from the other worlds. Probably
hidden from view, but also part of the display and able to be admired, the
small damascened swords were carefully placed between groups of small
scultures and statuettes. Thus, as Raffaello Borghini wrote in Il Riposo in
1584, the connection between order and display should cause amazement
or wonder. In particular he specified the exotic as part of the mechanism
by which wonder can be caused.
But of great wonder to see is a study in five distinct categories, where there
are in good order [] small statues, of bronze and wax; and [] objects of
hardstone of many sorts, vases of porcelain and rock-crystal, sea shells of
various types, pyramids of precious stones, jewels, medals, masks,
petrified fruits and animals and many new and rare objects from the Indies
and from Turkey, which amaze.95
However, the concept of what was wonderful and how it could be

achieved was shifting in the writings of Bocchi and Borghini. Their
discussion on wonder reflected the changes in aesthetic appreciation at the
end of the sixteenth century. The investigation into art theory and
aesthetics, set out as a discussion between Bernardo Vecchietti, owner of
the villa Il Riposo and Ridolfo Sirigatti, Baccio Valori and Girolamo
Michelozzi, confirms many of the views put forward by Bocchi.96 In his
95 Borghini-Rosci 1967, 12-3: Ma di gran maraviglia vedere uno scrittoio in
cinque gradi distinto, dove sono con bellordini con partite statue piccole di
marmo, di bronzo di terra e di cera; e vi sono composte pietre fini di pi forte, vasi
di porcellana, e di christallo di montagna, conche marini di pi maniere, piramidi
di pietre di fran valuta, gioe, medaglie, maschere, frutte & animali congelati in
pietre finissimi, e tante cose nuoue e rare venute dIndia, e di Turchia che sanno
stuprie chiunque le ramira. It is worth noting that both Bocchi and Raffaello
Borghini, great-nephew of Vincenzo had connections with Francescos court and
as such might reflect the views of the prince. Il Riposo was dedicated to Don
Giovanni de Medici, natural son of Grand Duke Cosimo I.
96 Vecchietti was a banker, a man of letters and a collector, Giambolognas first
patron and artistic advisor to Francesco. For example he was one of the four
senators chosen to organise his funeral. Ridolfo Sirigatti was an amateur sculptor
and painter as well as a collector. Valori, doctor of law and librarian of the
Laurentian library, had further connections with the arts since he had represented
Cosimo in the Accademia del Disegno. Michelozzi was a historian. See BorghiniEllis 2007, 41-2 and Bury 1985 13-20.
108
Chapter Five
discussion on painters, Bocchi singled out Andrea del Sarto as the primary
Florentine artist, for his realism and it is worth noting the number of
paintings by del Sarto and Raphael on display in the Tribuna, compared to
the works by contemporary painters. Borghini equally castigated works
that had too much invention and praised del Sarto for his advance over
the drawing, the grace, the colour, the lifelikeness and the threedimensionality of all the other painters who had painted up to that time.
And, in truth, one would never be able to praise it enough.97 Later he
continued, That marvellous Last Supper in San Salvi is his work, which
is not only the most beautiful thing that he did, but the most beautiful that
could be done. This is facile of manner, observant of design and has all the
parts that belong to a good painting.98 Here Borghini links the marvellous
to lifelikeness and good design, thus bringing it closer to Aristotles
original emphasis on realism as the foundation of poetry, which had been
so hotly debated in the middle of the century.99 The choice of the great
Florentine artists of the early sixteenth century to display in the Tribuna
reflected this new aesthetic and the return to order and balance in the arts.
As Michaelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, playwright and poet,
wrote in 1600, wonder could be achieved through order and decorum.
From the machines, therefore comes maraviglia, which is the principal
means of understanding [] from the noble and graceful tale comes the
moral and those human and divine customs which through the expression
of proper decorum, purge the minds of the spectators, leading them toward
justice and even true love. These last also result from the excellence of the
words themselves, which are the images of thoughts, and form the
exquisite and varied music, which is perfectly adapted to the characters and
to the concepts.100
97 Borghini-Ellis 2007, 210.

98 Ibid.
99 Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole
composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must
also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order.
Poetics, part 7. Further on Aristotle continues: Accordingly the poet should prefer
probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities. The tragic plot must not be
composed of irrational parts. Aristotle, Poetics, part 24, 1460a.
100 Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger (1568-1647) wrote the Descrizione
delle felicissime nozze della cristianissma maest Madama Maria Regina di
Francia e di Navarra, performed in Florence1600. An account of the play is given
in Carter 2003. On Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger see also Cole 1999, I,
79-82.
109
Just as a theatrical display used machinery to create wonderful spectacles,

so also could a display be formed through the appropriate punctuation of
works of art among the sculptures and paintings on the shelves to create
the effects of wonder, but visually, thus achieving a new form of Vasaris
bellissimo ordine.101
The Tribuna as Theatre

There is thus one further aspect of the Tribuna, and in particular the
relationship between the Tribuna and the theatre, that emerges through
considering the arrangement of the works of art on display. Buontalenti, as
theatre designer and the designer of various spectacles for the Medici was
part of the circle, known as the Florentine Camerata. This group of likeminded Florentines, interested in music and performance, met at the home
of Count Giovanni Bardi and was active from the 1570s to the 1590s,
when it declined in importance.102 Bardi, perhaps best known as the
inventor of the Intermedi for La Pellegrina, performed in 1589 at the
marriage of Ferdinando and Christine of Lorraine, was thus the centre of a
circle that included Vincenzo Galilei (c.1520-1591) and Girolamo Mei
(1519-1594). Their interest in performance and oratory came together in
the attempt to identify and understand the original classical sources. Thus
it was thought that the ancient Greeks based their music on declamation.103
The long and complicated history of the Renaissance debate between
Aristotle and Platos views on theatre, rhetoric and literary devices does
not need to be discussed here in detail, but that it was an essential part of
any Renaissance writers education is central to the argument that the
display of works of art could encompass such ideas. There seems to be an
interesting corollary between the return to a more balanced and natural
expression in art and to the contemporary interest in Greek theatrical and
musical performance practice. More specifically, the way in which
declamation related to natural speech patterns was part of the discussion
presented in a series of letters between Galilei and Mei, in which Galilei
asked questions about the performance practice of the ancients; Mei
replied that the Greeks would have sought simplicity, following natural
speech patterns. In the dialogues on the interpretation of music, Mei
stressed the importance of understanding the music and practice of the
101 See Gldy 2009a, xxiii-xxv who revives ideas about the use of order and its
importance for the display schemes developed by Vasari first discussed in her
doctoral thesis (Manchester 2002), 17-8.
102 Palisca 1989, 4-9.
103 Ibid., 61. See also Giordani 1999, 20-8.
110
Chapter Five
Greeks.104 In particular, Mei said that false distractions and complexities in

musical writing mean that artists lose themselves in incidental and
accessory vanities, [which] does not permit the instrument of the voice
to fulfil its office.105 Instead, he argued, the ancients followed speech
patterns, thus linking the poetry with the music. This, which is seen by
musicologists as the beginning of a new movement in musical practice,
raises interesting questions with regard to the organisation and order of the
display in the Tribuna. As already discussed, the sequence of sculptures
was interrupted by the placement of a marvellous object in irregular
patterns. Tellingly, Giulio Caccini in Le Nuove Musiche of 1602 urged the
singer to move the listener by his use of sprezzatura, which he described
as a noble manner of singing that comes as close to natural speech as
possible, without submitting itself to the constraints of a regular pulse.106 It
would thus be interesting to see how far the various rhythms created by the
breaks in the display of the sculptures followed such speech patterns but
what is of particular note is that this sense of natural rhythm can be seen so
clearly in the varied presentation of the objects on display.107
A further possible link between musical theory and the conception of
the display of the Tribuna lies in the new approaches to harmony and the
use of chords to provide order. Howard Mayer Brown discusses the music
for the Florentine Intermedi, saying that there were foundation instruments,
such as chordal instruments and ornamenting instruments.108 Stringed
instruments, particularly the lute, were foundation instruments, accompanying
the solo singers and often duplicating the main vocal lines. However, there
were many combinations and other instruments could take up individual
voices or contrapuntal rhythms.
The connection between theatre and music, display and speech patterns
was united by the concept of harmony as both an aesthetic and intellectual
experience. Many of the concerns of the Camerata were based on
understanding the natural harmonies, which it was felt could be rediscovered by understanding Greek practice and thus returning to the
104 Letter to Vincenzo Galilei, in Palisca 1989, 57-74.
105 Ibid., 74.
106 Giulio Caccini (1551-1618), Le nuove musiche, 1602. I am most grateful to
John Hoenig for this reference.
107 A precise comparison between the pattern of display on the shelves of the
Tribuna and the musical notations of the period could perhaps develop this analogy
further although probably there is too great a variety of works to find one source. It
is equally likely that Buontalenti was presenting a general theatrical experience
rather than a precise notation.
108 Mayer Brown 1973, 19.
111
natural in the writing and presentation of music. Aristotles emphasis that

wonder could be found in reality could thus be recreated by following
the natural laws of the Universe. As Schmitt-Bieggerman argues, harmony
is the unity of difference [] and harmony also means order, which is
difference appearing as harmony.109 In the Tribuna, the apparent variety
in the display led to grandeur and simplicity. If the Tribuna, shaped in the
form of the octagon, the spatial representation of the octave, represented
the harmony to be found in the universe, then the display on the shelves
formed part of this overall concept, bringing variety through the rhythms
created by the juxtaposition of the works of art.
In conclusion, the representation of the Universe through the depiction
of the four elements, the wonder that was caused by the juxtaposition of
Art and Nature were key elements of the message presented in the
Tribuna. However, as a space intended for a more public audience, and
thus very different from Francescos Studiolo, the role of the Tribuna was
also to display Medici power and prestige. Through the analogy with the
Tower of the Winds, based on the references in Vitruvius text, Francesco
could make more precise associations with good government. By
presenting the most important and beautiful of modern and antique works
of art to the public of Florence, he could emulate and perhaps even surpass
that most celebrated Roman, Marcus Agrippa, creator of the original
Pantheon and builder of Rome. Thus in the Tribuna, the Medici could
reinforce the message that through their patronage, they were the heirs of
the power and prestige of the Roman world.
The display in the Tribuna, as much as the choice of the works of art,
may be seen as representing the language of wonder in Florentine
discourse at the end of the sixteenth century. The analysis began with the
concept of wonder as a literary device, revived through the re-examination
of Aristotles treatises. The presence of exotica in the display was to act, in
combination with the artificialia, as punctuation points; this in turn leads
to the suggestion that there was a rhythm to the display close to those of
speech reflecting the new interest in the importance of classical
performance as a model for contemporary composition and performance.110
This seems entirely in keeping with the suggestion that Buontalenti, in his
109 Schmidt-Biggemann 307.
110 Luppi and Carter 1990, 129-39. Interestingly Bocchi also wrote a treatise on
music, Discorso di Francesco Bocchi sopra la Musica, non secondo l'arte di
quella, ma secondo la ragione alla politica pertinente (Florence, 1581), in which
he discussed music in terms of its civic purpose and, basing much of his argument
on Aristotles Poetics, although he came to different conclusions, from the views
held by Galilei for example, on the importance of ancient music.
112
Chapter Five
role as architect of the Tribuna, brought together the worlds of theatre and
art.111 The type of exotica that was present in the Tribuna, reinforces the
concept that wonder was the result of combining art and nature through
the skill of man and the materials of nature. However, as Bocchi and
Borghini made clear, such skill had to be set within the context of balance,
order and harmony.
Platt has suggested that, although wonder was an absolutely central
concept in the sixteenth century, it was a concept full of inconsistency
and variety.112 In the case of the display of the Tribuna, it is not so much
inconsistency that is found, but rather an extraordinary unity that emerges
from contemporary discussions on wonder. Indeed the perceptible shift
between the marvellous as expressed through the ingenuity of man to the
marvellous as found in order and harmony may reflect the shifts in the
appreciation of wonder in Aristotles writings. Just as Galileo Galilei saw
Ariostos poem as a return to the order and wonder of the great figures of
Antiquity, so Bocchi and Borghini sought to analyse the greatness of the
most famous artists of Florence. In turn, the message of the harmony and
order brought to Florence through the rule of the Medici princes was
reinforced by the display of works of art in the Tribuna. The concept of
wonder achieved by the marvellous works to be seen in this room of
treasures was thus not only achieved through the skilled workmanship of
the objects but also through the ingenuity of the display.113
111 Carter 1985, 73-5 discusses Jacopo Corsi and his connections with Bardi and
the new developments in performance in the 1590s in much the same terms.
112 Platt 1999, 15.
113 An additional aspect to investigate might be how far this shift of emphasis
reflects the different points of view of Francesco and Ferdinando themselves, since
the Tribuna was created at the point of transition between the two grand dukes.
113
APPENDIX
OBJECTS OF NATURE OR EXOTICA (EXCLUDING HARDSTONES AND
SCULPTURES) TAKEN FROM THE INVENTORY OF THE TRIBUNA 1589
[extracted from Gaeta Bertel 1997]
The following are items listed in the inventory that relate to natural works of art
that could have a non-European provenance such as mother-of-pearl or
tortoiseshell, including some amber items which might be classed as exotic; items
as listed as coming from the Indies; damascened metalwork; items that have
subsequently identified in the museum collections of Florence as being nonEuropean.
Sotto il palchetto miniato
13 Una nicchia intera di madreperla attaccata con catenuzze dargento con suo
guarnimento dargento dorato con n. 26 chiocciolini di vare sorte appiccate dentro
a detta nicchia, n.1
Segue nella medesima mensola
23
Un coltello grande alla turchesca di Germani o domaschino con suo
manica di cristallo ghiera dargento dorato, guaina di sagri verde con
puntale e 3 di argento dorato traforate con catena dargento, palmi 2 0/3,
n.1
32
Un coltello Germani o dommaschino con manica di tartarugha, borchia
dosso bianco, guaina di sagri nero con puntale e 2 ghiere dargento
lavorato dorate alla turchesca con sua catena dargento appiccata, n.1
38
Un(a) mezza nicchia di madreperla entrovi n. 14 chioccioline al naturale,
anima dargento dorato, n.1
Alla terza mensola
46
Un coltello dommaschino o Germani, manica davorio, guaina di sagri
con ghiera e puntale dargento dorato e catena dargento n.1
Segue alla quarta mensola
54
Un coltello di Germani o dommaschino, manica davorio, a biscia,
manica dargento dorato e catena dargento dun fantoccio, con guaina
de legno giallo, con catena dargento, n.1
Alla quinta mensola
62
Un coltello Germani o dommaschino con manica dosso commesso
doro e rubinetti e turchine con guaina di sagri nero con puntale e
(g)hiera e puntale dargento dorato e catenuzzo dargento, n.1
Alla sesta mensola
74
Un coltellino di Germani o dommaschino, manica di diaspro verde
114
Chapter Five
guarnito doro con n.8 rubini con guaina di sagri con 2 ghiere e un
puntale doro con n.21 rubino, attaccato con catenuzza dargento, n.1
Alla settima mensola

82
Una daghetta di Germani, manica dosso bianco con traversa o guardia
dargento dorato smaltato, pome simile in guaina dargento smaltata,
attaccata a una catenuzza dargento, n. 1
90
Un coltello torto di Germani o dommaschino, manica dosso bianco con
guaina di sagri nero con puntale e ghiera dargento attaccato a sua
catenuzza dargento, n.1
94
Una nicchia doppia di madreperla che si apre con n.22 chioccioline al
naturale, lanime dargento dorate, fornimento dargento dorato, n.1
Segue alla nona mensola
104
Un coltello di Germani o dommaschino, con manica di diaspro verde con
rosetta dargento, guaina di sagri, ghiera e puntale dargento dorato, il
quale coltello dacciaio ordinario fatto in Firenze, catenuzza dargento,
n.1
Alla decima mensola
112
Un coltello alla turchesca, con lettere turchesche, manico dargento
dorato straforato, con animali e fiori, guaina di legno vernicato, con un
coltellino nella detta guaina, guiera e puntale dargento dorato e
catenuzza dargento n. 1
Allundecima mensola
127
Un coltello alla turchesca di Germani o domaschino, con manico doro
massiccio lavorato a uso di nastro, con sua guaina di legname vernicata
di nero con un coltellino con manica doro lavorata a fogliami con un
puntale e ghiera appiccagnolo e mezzo bottone tutto doro massiccio
lavorato alla turchesca, con sua catenuzza dargento,n.1
Alla dodicesima mensola
136
Un coltello di Germani o dommaschino, di pidocchioso con sua ghiera
dargento, fodero di sagri nero, ghiera e puntale dargento dorato, con
sua catenuzza dargento, n.1
141
Un ciottolo doro vergine venuto dellIndie, di peso di once--con sua
catena dargento a carati 21
143
Un ciottolo dambra gialla congelatovi drento una lucertola attaccata con
un cordoncino di seta, n.1
Alla tredicesima mensola
153
Un coltello dommaschino o Germani, con manica di pidocchioso, ghiera
dargento, guaina di sagri nero con puntale e ghiera dargento dorato e
115
Alla quattordicesimi mensola

161
Un coltello di Germani o dommaschino, con manica di cristallo di
montagna con ghiera dargento dorato smaltata, con suo fodero di sagri
nero con puntale e 3 ghiere dargento dorato e smaltato, con catenuzza
dargento, n.1
170
Un coltello di Germani o dommaschino, la lama commessa doro a
rabeschi con manica , guaina e catena, tutto dor massiccio, lavorata alla
turchesca, guarnita di pi turchine, opalis, e rubinetti, la quale dicono fu
acquistato nellarmata, n.1
185
Un coltello domaschino o Geramani con lama commessa doro, manica
doro massiccio, straforata e lavorata con animali e fogliami con una
turchina di sopra, guaina di legno dipinta azzuro e doro con puntale e 3
ghiere doro con n.17 turchine grande e n. 9 rubini simili et altri rubinetti
e turchine piccole, con sua catenuzza dargento, n.1
Alla diciassettesima mensola
193
Un coltello domaschino o Germani, manico di calcidonio guarnito
dargento dorato smaltato pagonazzo e verde con guaina di sagri nero
con puntale e 3 ghiere dargento dorato smaltate, con sua catenuzza
dargento, n.1
Alla diciottesima mensola
202
Un coltello di Germani o domaschino, in guaina di sagri nero con un
altro coltello simile con ghiere dosso bianco e manica di scorza
tartarugha, ghiera e puntale della guaina dargento dorato e catenuzza
dargento, n.1
206
Un mezza nicchia di madreperla con una perla grossa attaccata, n.1
208
Un mezza nicchia di madreperla con una perla grossa attaccata naturale,
n.1
Alla diciannovesima mensola
217
Dua coltelli e un coltellino che fa lima e uno stuzzicadenti o orecchi
dacciaio Germani o dommaschino, manica dosso di tartarugha, ghiere
dosso bianco, guaina di sagri, ghiere e puntali dargento dorato e
Alla ventesima mensola
225
Un pugnale domaschino di Germani, lama straforata con alcune perlette
drento, manica di diaspro verde, guaina di sagri nero, puntale, ghiera e
guardie dargento dorato, catenuzza dargento
229
Un nacchera doppia con sua gangherature e serature dargento dorato e
catenuzza con 13 chiocciole al naturale, anime di argento dorato, n.1
116
Chapter Five
UPPER SHELVES
Su palchetti miniati doro che son retti dale retroscritte mensole cominciando da
man ritta dentro alla porta
232
Una scatola aovato de legname vernicata e miniata con figure alla
indiano con suo coperchio, n.1
239
Una gabbia dambra gialla, n.1
Primo arco che posa su detto palchetto
253
Una tazza dambra gialla o cosa simile, n.4
Segue su pachetti after the seconda guglietta
270
Un vaso di scorza di tartarugha guarnita dargento venuta dellIndie, cio
copperchio, piede e beccuccio dargento, n.1
274
Un vaso di terra rossa dipinta dellIndie a uso di navicella serrate di
sopra con suo beccuccio e nel mezzo un giglio chef fa peverino, n. 1
Alla terza guglietta
308
Un vasetto di corno di rencerota, alto braccia 0/3, con beccuccio,
cerchietti e bottone doro smaltato con suo coperchio, n.1
Alla quinta guglietta
316
Una chiocciola di madreperla intagliata che posa su un nicchio dargento
dorato, serve per piede, quale posa sopra una basa dargento dorata, n.1
328
Una chiocciola stiacciata guarnita con dalfini e filetti dargento dorato,
posa su una basa dargento dorato, n.1
Alla sesta guglietta
338
Una branchetta di corallo scarnatino con lanima di corallo rosso posa su
un peduccio di legno, n.1
339
Una scodella con suo coperchio dosso di tartarugha trasparente e
miniato doro macinato, n.1
356
Dua scodelle di tartarugha trasparente che fanno palla, n.2
Segue alla settima guglietta
369
Un dragho di chiocciola, collo, e alie, e piede, e coda dargento dorato,
sul dorso del quale si posa una saliera di cristallo di monte, guarnita
dargento dorato con coperchio e una figurina dargento con vesta doro
smaltato, che tiene a freno detto dragho e tutto posa su un monte
dargento intrecciato di fuora di filo dargento dorato, n.1
Al quarto arco
380
Un vaso di un mezzo huovo di struzzolo intagliato di figure e grottesche,
di mano del Marchionni tedescho, con guarnitione dargento dorato con
termini e un granchio sotto che serve per pi, n.1
117
Allottava guglietta
389
Una cassettina di madreperla intagliata guarnita con 4 balaustri di corallo
e filettata dargento dorato, piccola, n.1
Al quinto arco
408
Due tazzoline tonde di madreperla con manichi, cerchietti e piedi
dargento dorato, n.2
Al sesto arco
446
Una testa con busto duno idolo, di calcidonio, vestita con panno in capo,
peduccio di simile, n.1
Alla dodicesima guglietta
460
Una scatola di legno aovata con suo coperchio, miniato doro e rossa
allindiana, n.1
IN THE CUPBOARDS
E larmadio primo da man desstra segue lInventario nel primo palchetto di
sopra
497
Due vasi a scodella di mezzi houvi di struzzolo, guarniti con manichi,
piedi e cerchietti dargento, n.1
498
Dua corni de bada, bassi, a uso di monticelli con punte, n.2
499
Un vaso detto un coccho dIndia guarnito intorno dergento con piedi e
coperchio dargento, n.1
Al secondo palchetto
504
Una scodella dottone lavorata allazzimina con suo coperchio simile, n.1
505
Una chiocciola di madreperla con anima dargento dorato grande, n.1
A(l)quarto palchetto
539
Una tazzetta di corniola Bianca liscia senza piede, segnata nel fondo n.33,
n.1
Secondo armadio da man sinistra [] al secondo palchetto
608
Una tazza a uso di labica di diaspro venuta dallIndie lavorata scanalata
stretti guarnita dargento dorato allIndiana segnata in fondo n.11, n.1
CHAPTER SIX
SOUTH, EAST AND NORTH:
THE SWEDISH ROYAL COLLECTIONS
AND DOWAGER QUEEN HEDWIG ELEONORA
(1636-1715)
LISA SKOGH
In 1654 Hedwig Eleonora (1636-1715), princess of Schleswig-HolsteinGottorf, married Carl X Gustav of Pfalz-Zweibrcken (16221660), king
of Sweden (Fig. 26). The marriage contract included the clausula that, if
she were to be widowed, Hedwig Eleonora would inherit large estates and
gain a substantial income.1 Thus, when her husband died in 1660, the
dowager queen became one of the richest people in the realm and
remained in administrative and financial control of her estates, since she
never remarried. From now on Hedwig Eleonoras interests focused on her
only son, on the monarchy and on boundless cultural activities, including
patronage of art and architecture and the creation of her collections. The
enormous wealth of goods that she amassed came in part from her own
acquisitions and commissions of contemporary works of art and in part
from her predecessors collections in Sweden and in Gottorf. These
collections were displayed in the old castles (at Gripsholm and in the
Royal Palace in Stockholm); in the palaces that she commissioned
(Drottningholm and Strmsholm); and those that she acquired (Ulriksdal
and Carlberg). Hedwig Eleonoras cultural leadership had great impact on
the royal art collection, much of which survives to this day and on the
royal residences in seventeenth-century Sweden and upon the visual
identity of the monarchy in Sweden (which from 1680 to 1718 was an
absolute monarchy).
1 Brunius & Asker 2011.
120
Chapter Six
Figure 26: Jrgen Ovens. Hedwig Eleonora of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, Queen

of Sweden, before 1654, Nationalmuseum, NMGrh 1222 (photo: Nationalmuseum).
The large collections of works of art and of rarities that Hedwig Eleonora
amassed can be identified through accounts, inventories and letters in the
National Archives and the Royal Palace Archives, as well as through the
objects themselves, still in the Royal Collections and in the
Nationalmuseum. Her collections included, among other things, several
portrait galleries and substantial amounts of ivories, hardstone vessels,
medals, porcelain and silver. The collections were large and consisted also
of rarities and pretiosa from far and near. This article looks at examples in
Hedwig Eleonoras collections that originated from areas to the East,
South and North of the Swedish realm, as well as within it. It also attempts
to trace collecting traditions originally established at Hedwig Eleonoras
natal court of Gottorf and transferred by her to Sweden.
South, East and North
121
Collecting the South

The cultivation of plants normally grown in the warm South of Europe in
the harsh climes of the very North of Europe was considered a sign of
exotic luxury and the fruits of such labour, therefore, were perceived as
desirable collectibles. Thus, the large quantities of melons delivered for
the dowager queens court were considered marvels that should be
recorded and can be linked to still-lives executed by the court painter
David Klcker Ehrenstrahl (1628-1698). Hedwig Eleonora commissioned
him to depict several melons in oil on canvas, one of which was displayed
in Hedwig Eleonoras audience chamber at Drottningholm palace. Two
other melon portraits later ended up in the Bonde collections at Ericsberg
palace (Fig. 27).2 One of them, displayed in the painting on draped
shimmering textiles, had been grown at the Royal Palace in Stockholm in
1678 and weighed one Lipunt,3 while the other one, called Milona, had
been grown at Carlberg in 1677 and weighed 18 Skhlpundhwithout its
seeds. This indicated that these marvels of nature were not just displayed
in paintings as a testimonial to their skilled cultivator and patron but also
cut up and served, most likely as a special feature at royal banquets. Such
paintings were not limited to Sweden but, there were numerous examples
elsewhere such as the portrait of King Charles II being presented with a
pineapple grown in England. Thus paintings could present a particular
display of royal patrons and of their role in creating rarities as part of
courtly splendour.4
2 How these two paintings by Klcker Ehrenstrahl came into the Bonde familys
collections at Ericsberg is unknown. It is likely that they came from the royal
collections as a mark of the familys high standing at court. The inscriptions on the
paintings refer to the respective places of cultivationthe Royal Palace in
Stockholm and Carlberg Palace.
3 This weight was used in Sweden during most of the seventeenth century. One
Lipund was made up of 20 Sklpund. The 18 Sklpund of one of the melons
corresponds to just over 8 kilos and one Lipund is a little more than that. Hence,
both these melons were unusually large and heavy.
4 In 1675 Danckerts was commissioned to portray King Charles II with the first
pineapple ever (allegedly) cultivated in England. He also created another series of
pineapple portraits of a more technical and scientific aspect.
122
Chapter Six
Figure 27: David Klcker Ehrenstrahl, Melon, 1678, Private Collection at

Ericsberg Palace (photo: Marianne Setterblad).
The French gardener Andr Mollet (d. before 1665), who had also worked
at the Swedish court, described the art of cultivating melons in great detail
in his treatise Art und Weise die Edle Frucht Melohnen zu zeugen
(Hamburg, 1659).5 Mollet praised the melon as a noble fruit and rarity;
therefore he advised the learned on how to cultivate it properly. For
example, Mollet shared his theories on how such large melons as those
from Carlberg and Stockholm had reached their extraordinary weight.6
The fascination with rare fruits and vegetables and the art of improving
nature, as made evident in princely gardens, was a continuation of the
artificial collectibles displayed within a palace; flora (and fauna) also
represented knowledge about distant and local cultures. The ephemeral
display of such rare goods was regarded as similar to more durable works
of art, for example paintings, textiles or pretiosa.7
5 Mollet 1659. It is not known if Hedwig Eleonora owned a copy of this treatise. It
is such a rare publication that it might have been published solely for the duke of
Braunschweig und Lneburg, as seems to be confirmed by its current location at
the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbttel.
6 Andr Mollets son, Jean Mollet, was employed at the Swedish court from
c.1660 until his death in 1708.
7 de Jong 2001.
123
Collecting the North

The seventeenth-century princely collectors fascination with rare oddities
of nature, including fauna, is further exemplified in the milieu of Hedwig
Eleonora. Even a northern court like Sweden on occasion looked even
further north for rare and hard-to-obtain exemplars from the animal world.
The dowager queen commissioned Klcker Ehrenstrahl to portray not only
her ancestors and the above-mentioned huge Swedish-grown melons, but
also other marvels found within the realm and at court. A polar bear, Der
weisse Br (Fig. 28), had supposedly come to the royal family as part of a
diplomatic gift from the Russian tsar;8 it was the most spectacular animal
of northern origin in the royal menagerie. The inscription on Klcker
Ehrenstrahls portrait read Ursum hunc aqvaticu[m] e Nova Zembla and
referred to the beast as a water bear; hence the bear appeared not in an
arctic landscape but amongst the cliffs of a exoticised northern Baltic sea
coast.9 Hedwig Eleonora had the picture of the polar bear displayed in her
guards chamber at Drottningholm palace next to the life-size portrait of a
particular brown bear which her son Carl XI had shot in 1681.10
The large number of pictures of powerful and wild northern animals
that formed part of Hedwig Eleonoras world of wonders was complemented
by many other, smaller but equally rare, creatures. For example, Klcker
Ehrenstrahl was commissioned to portray an albino fox with its whiteness
accentuated.11 This interest in oddities was further indulged in 1696, when
Hedwig Eleonora commissioned her cabinet painter Eric Utterhielm
(1662-1717) to depict an albino squirrel with bright red eyes.12 A
fascination with deformed creatures was attested to by an unfortunate,
limping hunch-backed creature, thought to be a crossbreed between wolf
and dog, portrayed by Klcker Ehrenstrahl and described as Monstrum et
Lupo et Cane in Finlandia prognatum. Anno 1668 ad vivum pinxit.13
8 See Rapp 1951, 124 on the different theories regarding the provenance of the
polar bear and how it came into the royal collections.
9 Nationalmuseum Stockholm (Inv. no NMDrh 566).
10 Nationalmuseum Stockholm (Inv. no NMDrh 7).
11 An albino squirrel portrait is today in the collections at Sandemar; of the three
other versions known, two are now in private collections and one in the
Nationalmuseum Stockholm (NM 5234).
12 This information is from Rapp 1951, 133 who provides no archival references
on this matter. Many other versions of this particular albino squirrel portrait were
made, one of these by Klcker Ehrenstrahl, signed and dated in 1697, with a full
description of the discovery of the squirrel; see also Andersson 1967, V, 530.
13 Another malformed creature was painted as late as 1690; the portrait might
have been commissioned by Hedwig Eleonoras grown-up son, King Carl XI. The
124
Chapter Six
However, one of the more extraordinary monstrosities painted for the

royal collections was Martin Meytens the Youngers (1648-1736) picture
of a deformed newborn calf that only lived for an hour.14 The polar bear, a
turtle, the malformed crossbreeds, including the albino squirrel, were all
painted ad vivum as proudly noted in the portraits inscriptions, and all
formed part of Hedwig Eleonoras display of rarities that had once been
living around the royal residences, when they had arrived from northern or
even more distant parts of the world.
Figure 28: David Klcker Ehrenstrahl, Polar Bear, 1668, Nationalmuseum,

NMDrh 566 (photo: Nationalmuseum).
poor animal was described as Vulpis et Canis progenies and like the other
crossbreeds was limping and hunchbacked.
14 Transcription of the description made by Meytens on the painting Denna kalf
r uti Gefle Socken, Hille fallen A:o 1710 uti Martii mnad, efter Leben afmlad.
Lefde allenast en timme. M. Meytens pinx. [in translation: This calf is from Gefle
County Hill fallen Anno 1710 in the month of March, painted alive. It lived but
one hour. M. Meytens. pinxit.]
125
The flora and fauna of Lapland in the very north of the Swedish realm,
excited great fascination at the time and had its effect on Hedwig
Eleonoras collections. For example, a painting commissioned from
Klcker Ehrenstrahl depicted a reindeer with a Laplander in a sled. The
man is, however, believed to be Abraham Momma Reenstierna (16231690), of German descent, who had moved to Sweden to develop copper
mines and trade routes (Fig. 29). As a mercantile entrepreneur he travelled
north to Lapland to seek his fortune. He argued that Lapland represented a
quarter of the realms territorial space and thus would become a most
important source of revenue and offer financial security for the Crown.15
The picture of Momma Reenstierna was displayed in Hedwig Eleonoras
apartment at Drottningholm and it illustrated the the monarchys wish to
explore the north of the realm.
Figure 29: David Klcker Ehrenstrahl, Jacob Momma Reenstierna, 1671, NMGrh
2351, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (photo: Nationalmuseum).
This interest in Lapland, in the indigenous people (the Sami) and their
animals had its impact on the library as can be seen in many inventories of
Hedwig Eleonoras collections. Amongst those books was a German
version of the book Lapponia by the Uppsala professor Johannes Schefferus
(1621-1679).16 This was the first major publication on Lapland and was
15 Awebro 1995-7, XXIX, 716-9.
16 This book was first published in Latin in 1673 in Franfurt am Main; translations
into English, French and German were to follow.
126
Chapter Six
translated into many languages. Scheffreus also mentioned the expedition

of the Momma Reenstierna family. Hedwig Eleonora owned other books
on travels describing the northern lands, for example, the impressive large
format publication Suecia antiqua et hodierna, an illustrated work by Erik
Dahlberg (among others) which was executed as a royal commission.17 It
not only described the greatest manor houses in the Swedish realm but
also the natural grandeur of the country, including the most northern
territories and the people of Lapland.18 On the one hand this fascination
with the supposed Gothic origins of the Swedish people flourished among
the learned in Sweden, including court circles.19 On the other hand, the
highly exotic character of Lapland, its fauna, people and customs
contributed to a fascination which had begun when large silver depots
were found in 1635. Count Carl Bonde, member of the ruling Council,
then proclaimed that Lappland is our West Indies.20
The Crown also had a strong interest in commercial exploration,
including the princely duty of engagement in mining, Bergwercke, that it
shared with other northern ruling houses.21 This interest in mining can be
seen in various objects in Hedwig Eleonoras collections such as a pair of
Handsteine (lapides manuales or hand stones).22 Handsteine were
sculptural works of art made from silver or iron ore into miniature
landscapes and mounted on gilt stands.23 They were highly sought after by
German princes as Kunstkammer-collectibles and part of princely
decorum. Hedwig Eleonora also kept a jewel made of a raw piece of
copper. It was made from copper ore from the mines in Falun, worked into
a shape to imitate a raw state, crowned by a royal lion and decorated with
a so-called Swedish pearl, individual examples of which were also listed
in Hedwig Eleonoras inventories.24 Since the Crown owned the rights to
the pearl fishing operations in Lapland, natural resources such as these
were exploited during Hedwig Eleonoras lifetime and her interest can be
documented by her inventories. Hedwig Eleonora was not only interested
in gaining knowledge about the South and North but she also kept many
objects from the Far East in her collections.
17 Dahlberg 1667-1703. See also Magnusson 1986.
18 Dahlberg 1667-1703.
19 Neville 2013, 435-59.
20 Brom 1923.
21 See for example Leonhard Christoph Sturm 1707 and Watanabe-OKelly 2002.
22 These Handsteine might be those which were taken as Swedish war booty from
the Munich Kunstkammer in 1632.
23 See Mnzberg 2009, 65-6.
24 Uppsala University Library (Nordin 212).
127
Collecting the East

On her arrival in Sweden in 1654, Hedwig Eleonora had the royal
collections at her disposal. At the palace of Tynnels, which became part
of her estate, was a large, lacquered chest (Fig. 30), which had been a
Dutch diplomatic gift to King Gustavus Adolphus in 1616.25 Its wooden
carcase is lacquered, with inlays of mother-of-pearl and gold makie, and it
was made in Japan during the late Momoyama period (1573-1615). Its
style was typically Namban, made for the European market around 1600.
Figure 30: Lacquered Chest, Momoyama period, c.1600, Japan, The Swedish
Royal Collections (photo: The Swedish Royal Collections).
The chests exceptional status within the royal collections was obvious
and Hedwig Eleonora commissioned a carved and gilded wooden stand for
it from her court sculptor Burchardt Precht (1651-1738) to enhance the
valuable and curious chest. This happened not only because the chest came
25 See Vahlne, 1986, and the diary of Anthonis Goeteeris 1616, 26-8.
128
Chapter Six
from a distant land but, as importantly, because its entrance to the royal
collection could be traced back to Gustavus Adolphus. As can be seen in
many of Hedwig Eleonoras inventories, royal provenance, especially the
continuous line of possession through to such heroic kings as Gustavus
Adolphus or Gustav I Vasa, was emphasised in her practices of collecting
and display. Moreover, Hedwig Eleonora ordered the chest to be moved to
Gripsholm and displayed it as part of the furnishings of her formal state
bedchamber.26
A very large silk carpet was listed in the Crowns 1697 inventory.27
The carpet is of Persian origin and today usually referred to as the
Hunting carpet due to its decorative pattern. It has been suggested that it
might somehow have come with Hedwig Eleonora from the ducal court in
Gottorf; it may even have been part of her dowry in 1654 or have been
sent as a gift in celebration of the birth of Hedwig Eleonoras son, Carl
(XI), in 1655.28 The carpet, which was produced in Kashan during the
third quarter of the sixteenth century, probably arrived in Gottorf through
the travels of the Holstein courtier and scholar Adam Olearius (15991671). It is very rare as one of only three seventeenth-century silk carpets
from Persia that are still preserved in Western Europe, although many
such carpets must have existed in princely households according to the
inventories.29 How it was used and displayed during Hedwig Eleonoras
time is unknown, but it was recorded in her inventories as early as 1656.
Hedwig Eleonora had several other Persian and Ottoman rarities in her
collections, such as a group of shields, so-called kalkans.
These kalkans were made of fig withies covered in polychrome silk
thread and had metal centres with gilt clasps, some of which are inlaid
with turquoise; other shields are entirely made of gilt metal. The Royal
Armoury in Stockholm has identified these shields as part of the war booty
taken by Swedish troops in Prague in 1648 and it is believed that some of
these shields were originally a gift from ShahAbbas to Emperor Rudolf
26 Vahlne 1986. 26-8.
27 The so-called Hunting Carpet (measurements 585x285 mm) Inv. no: HGK,
Textilsamlingen 1, 467, The Royal Collections.
28 Granlund 1998, 30-1.
29 Ibid., 27-32, cat. n. 3. The other two silk carpets referred to here are in the
Museum fr Angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna and in the Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston. Examples of such carpets listed in inventories but which do not
survive include the large silk carpet given to Henry VIII by an Italian merchant
(Starkey 1998, no. 9190).: Charles I owned 3 silk carpets one of which measured
20 feet x 7 foot 6 inches (Millar 1972, 11, no. 50); Cardinal Mazarin owned 14 silk
carpets and Louis XIV 72 silk carpets (Sherrill 1995, 17). I wish to thank Susan
Bracken for these details.
129
II.30 These shields are mentioned for the first time in the Swedish royal
collections in 1652 as part of Queen Christinas possessions and then
again in 1692 as Hedwig Eleonoras donation to the Royal Armoury.31 The
provenance of the kalkans is difficult to analyse; three, however, are
probably of Persian craftsmanship,32 while another group could be
Ottoman.33 Hedwig Eleonora also donated a shield made of a naturally
shaped tortoiseshell, backed with wood, paper, and black lacquer
decorated in gold and lined with red silk and Four shields of black Horn
or Leather painted with gilding, which Her Majesty the dowager-queen of
the realm gave to the Armoury.34 These are identified as leather tooled
shields most probably made in Japan for the European market during the
mid-seventeenth century.35
The above-mentioned Persian and Ottoman shields were first recorded
in the 1696 inventory of the Royal Armoury amongst other gifts that had
been made by Hedwig Eleonora. A rather special shield was made of a
natural turtleshell engraved with gold.36 Another set of four shields, of
black horn or Leather painted with gilding which her Majesty the Dowager
Queen of the Realm has given to the Royal Armoury.37 Also recorded are
several daggers, the so-called kerises from Java and a weapon from the
African continent.38 The kerises are traditional in their asymmetrical, wavy
design with blades made of several layers of steel; one is decorated with
pamor, a traditional Javanese decorative pattern, on the blade and its
handle is made of ebony.39
The royal collections contained a couple of miniature pagoda
sculptures of Chinese origin.40 The oldest pagoda sculpture belonged to
30 Cederstrm 1924.
31 Nestor 2006, 57-65. This article includes many anecdotes as to how this war
booty came into the collection.
32 The Royal Armoury (Inv.n. LRK 10607, 7032, 7033).
33 The Royal Armoury (Inv. n. LRK 7084, 7118, 10608). This attribution is
however not conclusive, since Persian craftsmen were employed in many
countries, for example at the Ottoman court. For discussions on Ottoman designs I
am very grateful to Nurhan Atasoy.
34 The Royal Armoury, Copy of Inventory 1696.
35 The Royal Armoury (Inv.n. LRK 24162).
36 The Royal Armoury, Copy of Inventory 1696.
37 Ibid.
38 These kerises, daggers, the African knife as well as the tortoiseshell shield have
formed part of the collections of the Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm since the
early twentieth century.
39 The Royal Armoury, copy of 1696.
40 Gyllensvrd 1972, 187.
130
Chapter Six
Hedwig Eleonora which she placed at Gripsholm.41 This small nine-storey

pagoda was made of bamboo and covered in miniature pearls in blue,
green and white, crowned with a spire. The roof has metal bells and the
second floor is decorated with flowers made from feathers. Similar objects
were found in many princely European collections during the seventeenth
century but due to their fragility, very few have survived.42
Hedwig Eleonoras collections of Far Eastern porcelain were mainly
Chinese from the Kangxi period (1662-1722). In 1690 Hedwig Eleonora
bought a large collection of blanc de Chine figures produced in Fukien.43
These were placed in the dowager queens apartments at Drottningholm,
Ulriksdal and Carlberg.44 They were displayed on consoles or mantelpieces
and painted on arrival in polychrome colours to suit Hedwig Eleonoras
European taste.45 In Hedwig Eleonoras collection of Chinese porcelain
were some objects in mail sur bisquit, such as for example, a pair of
ducks standing on lotus leaves covered in shades of bright green and
violet, with yellow and gilt beaks.46 She also owned other similar
porcelain figures, such as a parrot sitting on a rock, which was probably
originally one of a pair. As was common amongst other European
collections, Hedwig Eleonora seems only to have owned Far Eastern
ceramics produced for the western market. She also owned other
sculptural porcelain objects such as a pair of large Wanli lions in famille
verte. Porcelain from China and Japan was considered by European rulers
to possess magical powers and was therefore entirely appropriate to be
collected and displayed as part of the wondrous world of a Frstin.47
Hedwig Eleonoras collection of Far Eastern works of art contained many
pieces which clearly came from China but also some of Japanese origin,
such as lacquered chests, pagoda sculptures and ceramics that still remain
41 Today this piece is displayed at the Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm.

42 The Far Eastern Museum of Antiquities (inv.no 200) holds another pair of
miniature pagodas in ivory and veneered with mother-of-pearl with its nine stories
and gilt dragon bells and stands of black lacquer, walls of pierced mother-of-pearl
and a seated Buddha figurine in the door of each section are also unique exotic
collectibles. They came into the Swedish Royal Collections later in the eighteenth
century and have been linked by Gyllensvrd to Ulrika Eleonora The Younger; see
Gyllensvrd 1972, 187-8.
43 Ibid., 159.
44 Today a large part of her collection is displayed at the Chinese Pavilion at
Drottningholm.
45 Gyllensvrd 1972, 168; Claxton 2010, 187-96.
46 Gyllensvrd 1972, 160-1
47 Distelberger 2000.
131
in the Royal collections and at the Nationalmuseum.48

Hedwig Eleonoras collections also included numerous paintings of
exotic animals such as parrots of various kinds which formed part of the
royal menagerie. In the same guards room where the already mentioned
portrait of the polar bear and the monstrous brown bear were displayed,
hung another even larger and even more exotic animal portrait: a
dromedary that Klcker Ehrenstrahl was commissioned to depict. The
dromedary was a gift to the king from Field Marshall Nils Bielke in
1688;49 it was portrayed along with its Turkish attendant, who had joined
Bielke upon his return to Sweden from the Ottoman Empire. On the
continent, Bielke had fought on the Hapsburg side and it is thought, have
taken the dromedary as war booty at the Battle of Mohcs (Hungary) in
1687.50 The paintings display side by side with portraits of local animals
can be linked to Hedwig Eleonoras pretiosa cabinet at Ulriksdal, in which
geographical origin was of little significance in the order of display. It has
also been suggested that there were several camels in the royal menagerie
at this time which were also part of a series of highly significant gifts.51 To
commission pictures of special gifts was part of a long tradition at the
Swedish court. Klcker Ehrenstrahl was to portray the many fine
thoroughbred horses that had been given to the royal family over the years.
The large collection of life-sized portraits of the horses with their exotic
names, such as for example Vezir and Sultan, was displayed in the formal
apartments at Drottningholm palace. Klcker Ehrenstrahls successor,
David von Krafft (1655-1724), continued this tradition when he portrayed
a turtle that was given to Hedwig Eleonora by tradesmen from Alicante.52
48 Some of the small-scale figures are of the most interesting character, such as the
seated Geisha in typical Kakiemon Aritaware produced during the Genroku period
(1673-1704) and other standing Geisha figurines along with an auspicious Hotei
God sitting on his bag, were all part of Hedwig Eleonoras collection. Gyllensvrd
1972, 173-8.
49 Nationalmuseum (Inv. no. NMDrh 9). Bielke was field marshall on the Imperial
side, fighting against the Turks in 1687. As booty this dromedary and his attendant
were taken along with some thoroughbreds of unspecified origins. The inscription
on the painting states: Hic Turca et Camelas ab Ill. et Exc. Com. et R. Senatore
Dn Nicolao Bielcke in Hungoria captu.
50 Wittrock 1923, 244.
51 Rapp 1951,122.
52 According to documentation discovered by Rapp this painting was made in
Klcker Ehrenstrahls workshop by his student David von Krafft in 1696, see Rapp
1951, 127. There were also other pictures of turtles executed by Klcker
Ehrenstrahl, and according to Rapp, signed by the artist.
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Chapter Six
The Influence of the Gottorf Collections

Gottorf was not only the court of Hedwig Eleonora childhood but also the
seat of a large and important collection. Her interest in collecting must
have been awakened during her upbringing and her correspondence; books
and the contents of the Swedish Royal Collections, as well as Hedwig
Eleonoras interest in exploring new trade routes, seem indeed to attest to
this possibility. She stayed in contact with Adam Olearius and his various
undertakings at Gottorf after her departure for Sweden in 1654; letters
exchanged between the dowager queen and Olearius and, of equal
importance, the personal, printed four-page dedication to Hedwig Eleonora
in Oleariuss first publication on the Gottorf Kunstkammer (1666) make
this quite clear.53 Finally, the contents of Hedwig Eleonoras collections
reveal many similarities with the composition of the Kunstkammer in
Gottorf and the collecting traditions of her parents.54
In his letters Olearius addressed his late patrons daughter, Hedwig
Eleonora, now queen dowager of Sweden, clearly seeking her protection
and patronage.55 His letters were sent in reference to his Kunstkammer
catalogue which was published later in 1666 Whether Hedwig Eleonora
ever assisted him in funding this publication remains unknown, since no
replies from the dowager queen to Olearius have yet been found.
Oleariuss personal printed dedication to Hedwig Eleonora in the first
edition of the Gottorf Kunstkammer catalogue is unique. No other copy
with a printed dedication has been found so far.56 It was printed in what
must be seen as Hedwig Eleonoras personal copy, dated on her thirtieth
birthday in 1666. Olearius praised her special knowledge and understanding
of the arts and collections, adding her to the renowned group of art-lovers,
indicating that she had special skills as a collector: he addressed her as a
Liebhaberin of the arts. Olearius wrote in his Gottorffische Kunst-Cammer
that he saw allerhand raren auch pretiosen kostbaren Sachen during his
travels and that he also brought some of them back from Persia and
Muscovy to the ducal collections in Gottorf, which can also be seen in the
53 Olearius 1666, a personal copy is in the Royal Academy of Sciences,
Stockholm University Library.
54 Drees 1997.
55 National Archives (Riksarkivet), Royal Archive (Kungl. Arkiv: inkommande
brev till Hedwig Eleonora: Olearius).
56 The only exception is a handwritten note to the Danish king, Frederick III, from
the time when the book was sent to him; this note, however, must be seen as a
more general type of dedication. This copy is now in the Royal Library,
Copenhagen, in the rare books department
133
many illustrations of his book.57 Thus the provenance of many objects in

Hedwig Eleonoras own collections can be traced back with some
certainty to the Gottorf collections and had possibly been originally
acquired by Olearius during his expeditions on behalf of the duke. Hedwig
Eleonora may have received some objects as part of her dowry, later as her
inheritance or, as in the case of the already-mentioned silk carpet, as a gift
from her parents. It has been suggested that the Javanese kerises might
also have been part of the Gottorf Kunstkammer at an earlier stage;
probably they were an acquisition by Olearius for the duke of Holstein via
Dutch trading companies.58 The Royal Armoury inventory of 1696
recorded a knife wide on the blade and narrow at the handle with a black
and white tip of bone wooden cover given by Her Majesty the dowagerqueen of the realm and as with the kerises it is most likely that the
African knife also came to Sweden via Gottorf.59
Many continental, in particular, German, princely collections, contained
kerises, such as, for example, the armouries in Dresden, Munich and in
Braunschweig; the same was true for Hedwig Eleonoras native Gottorf.
Many of the foreign objects in the Gottorf Kunstkammer are today in the
context of modern museology referred to as exempla of early modern
ethnographic collections.60 But what counted at the time was their
particular rarity rather than any attempt at ethnographic classification;
thus, in Olearius publication, collectibles were picked out for special
attention for their rarity rather than for their scientific interest and
variously labelled as was the custom of the day.61
Hedwig Eleonora herself had inherited an interest in exploring
eastward trading routes from her father, Friedrich III, duke of SchleswigHolstein-Gottorf who earlier in the seventeenth century had sent his
courtier Olearius to lead delegations to Muscovy and to Persia; Oleariuss
famous publications were based on these missions.62 The German-born
traveller Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716) was appointed as Official
57 Olearius 1666.
58 Royal Armoury (Inv. n. LRK 24173).
59 Royal Armoury (Inv. n. LRK 24177 & 24178).
60 See for example Mordhorst 2009. See also Brancaforte 2003 & Drees 1997.
61 A complete discussion of the collection of rarities (exotica & artificialia) will be
included in a separate chapter of the forthcoming publication of my doctoral
dissertation, Materials Worlds. Queen Hedwig Eleonora of Sweden (1636-1715) Collector and Patron (2013) by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences, Kungl.
Vetenskapsakademien.
62 Brancaforte 2003.
134
Chapter Six
Secretary to the 1683 Swedish mission to Persia.63 This mission was one
of several sent out as a result of the Crowns interests in the exploration of
new trade routes. While on Russian territory, the Swedish mission stayed
in Novgorod where special attention was given to the many Orthodox
monasteries with which gifts were exchanged. It may have been on this
visit that a finely carved Byzantine ivory casket was given to a monastery
within the Novgorod Kremlin on behalf of the Swedish court. The casket
was decorated with a gilt brass crowned monogram, HERS [Hedwig
Eleonora Regina Sueciae] which illustrates the dowager queens
affiliation with the mission to Persia and with her strong interest in leaving
a sign of her own virtual presence.64
As Brancaforte has recently shown, Kaempfer used Oleariuss published
travel accounts during his own mission on behalf of the Swedish Crown.65
This indicates not only how important Oleariuss work was for the
Western European understanding of Persia and Russia, but also how
helpful Oleariuss travels must have been to the Swedish 1683 delegation
in every respect and how vital the exploration of trade routes for the
Swedish Crown.66 In 1697 Hedwig Eleonora sent another delegation to
Persia, this time led by the Swedish envoy, the Brazilian Dutch-born
Ludwig Fabritius; unfortunately, this expedition was as unsuccessful in
developing new fruitful trading operations as the early attempts of
Kaempfer.
Terminology
In Hedwig Eleonoras account books the clerks often specified acquisitions
of rarities.67 Many other terms were also used when describing objects
of special value or provenance such as for example Indianische.68 As
was common in the period, such labels were often used inconsistently.
However, Hedwig Eleonoras records of rarities most often referred to
precious and valuable ephemera such as vegetables and fruits.69 Her
63 Brancaforte 2007, 83.
64 See Brancafortes dissertation of 2003 and subsequent publications.
65 Brancaforte 2007.
66 Ibid., 84.
67 All the account books (1654-1715) are kept in the Royal Archive (National
Archives or Riksarkivet) and stored in the Royal Palace (Slottsarkivet), Stockholm.
68 For example, see Royal Palace Archive (Slottsarkivet), Ulriksdal, DI:4.
69 For example, see in the accounts of Ulriksdal Palace, where Hedwig Eleonoras
garderners delivered; Hnnes Kongl. Mttz Cammar i Stockholm thskillige
rariteter af hret, Royal Palace Archives, fol. 306, Ulriksdal 1687. In the same
135
account books contained vast quantities of melons, apricots and artichokes

delivered to Hedwig Eleonora by agents or gardeners. Considering that
this court was located in the very north of Europe, such fruits formed a
luxurious part in the courtly display of the monarchy since they were
normally cultivated in more southern areas of Europe and required vast
expenditure and logistical effort to be brought to Sweden. Rare fruits and
vegetables were as important as other courtly ephemera, for example sugar
sculptures.70 These rarities should be analysed in the same context as other
less ephemeral goods, for example those collectibles made of precious
metals or hard stoneswhich all formed part of the splendid material
display orchestrated by Hedwig Eleonora at the Swedish court. Awareness
of the perishable nature of the vegetal rarities made these collectibles,
when in their prime, even more desirable.
The Swedish collections also contained rarities from distant lands, such
as objects from Persia, Japan and Indonesia; as well as war booty from
mainland Europe. In the seventeenth century, rarities from foreign cultures
were inventoried in diverse ways. As shown by recent research,
collections which included such objects listed them as Indianische, all
Indiana or indianske.71 These terms were often used to refer to objects
which came from South-East Asia, without an understanding of the role of
India as a trans-shipment point. However, in the sixteenth-century, the
term seems to have also encompassed the New World, Africa and the
Levant. In Hedwig Eleonoras accounts the term Indianische was
inconsistently used for objects from distant lands and cultures, as well as
for other curiosities. Local and foreign collectibles were often placed sideby-side in princely Kunstkammern or other types of display, as happened
in Hedwig Eleonoras pretiosa cabinet at Ulriksdal palace. This room
contained seven cupboards which displayed non-ephemeral rarities from
far and near, either commissioned for this purpose or inherited from
previous generations of collectors; some pieces had been acquired as war
volume it is also stated that rarities were brought from Carlberg Castle to the Royal
Palace in Stockholm, Jmwll upbrachte rariteter af hret i Hnnes Kongl. Mayttz
Cammar i Stockholm; see lists of the rarities on fol. 313 (melons, artichokes,
cauliflowers etc.).
70 For ephemeral sculptures at the Swedish court, such as sugar sculptures, see
Silfverstolpe (forthcoming) 2013. See also Marchands lunch time lecture (The
Warburg Institute, London, spring 2010), on the materials of ephemeral sculpture
in Renaissance Italy, in which he especially highlighted Michelangelos snow
sculptures in Florence.
71 See, for example, Keating & Markey 2011, 1-18, Bujok 2009, 17-32.
136
Chapter Six
booty.72 Thus the clerks often made no real distinction between local
rarities and those originating from distant cultures; in Hedwig Eleonoras
collections it was the rarity as such that was singled out and praised,
whether it came from the South, North or the Far East.
***
In conclusion, Hedwig Eleonoras collections demonstrate her aim to
display the monarchy amongst various types of rarities and precious goods
from far and near, of permanent as well as ephemeral qualities. This essay
has described the special attention given by Hedwig Eleonora as dowager
queen of Sweden to collectibles from the east and the north in particular,
but also from more southern areas of Europe, as for the example
cultivating and displaying rare vegetables and fruits. Her interest in
collectibles from the Far East might fall in the more general but expected
princely collecting tradition. At the time Far Eastern ceramics were still
much sought after in Scandinavia and considered very precious. Hedwig
Eleonoras interest in the Gothic origin of the Swedish people, as well as
in unknown lands, which included Persia and Russia, but also the exotic
lands of Lapland, were all interests similar to those of her father, Friedrich
III, duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf, and the expeditions promoted and
carried out by Olearius. Some of Hedwig Eleonoras rare and precious
collectibles were comparable to those amassed by Adam Olearius and
described in his publication on the Gottorffische Kunstkammer but also to
those which would have been included in the publication on pretiosa that
was never realised. Oleariuss ideas on collecting formed a central source
of inspiration to Hedwig Eleonoras attempts as a collector of objects from
far and near alongside her inherited interest from her native court, at
Schlo Gottorf, one of the most sophisticated courts in Northern Europe in
the mid-seventeenth century.
72 Skogh 2011.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BERTINS CHINESE COLLECTION:
FROM CURIOSITY TO KNOWLEDGE
CONSTANCE BIENAIME
The existence of a trade in eighteenth-century Chinese artefacts is

illustrated in some nineteenth-century sales catalogues, which distinguish
between high quality works of art and the cheap creations brought back
from Canton. Ever since Marco Polos narratives of his adventures and
travels introduced a multitude of exotic names to France and to the rest of
Europe, mere mention of these names was enough to fascinate the public.
By the late seventeenth-century, an increasing number of the ships of the
French East India Company were arriving at the port of Lorient. They
enabled the admirers of artefacts known as Lachine (a contemporary
French expression referring to Chinese objects or Chinese style
objects) to form collections, in which porcelains, magots and lacquers
rivalled in exoticism. This craze influenced many artists and they
developed a particular style, influenced and enriched by the sight of
artefacts imported from Canton (today Guangzhou). Thus, they contributed
to the dissemination throughout Europe of the notion of a Far East
perceived as an Empire of Extravagance. The artists were assisted by
marchands-merciers (literally merchants of goods in French) since their
shops were packed with these objects. The attraction of China for the
general public had developed into a largely exaggerated fancy for
Chinoiserie which limited itself to an interest in exoticism, rather than a
real desire for discovering a vast and distant empire. This interest in
Chinoiserie rather than in China itself reveals the alleged cultural
encounter between Europe and Asia in modern times as some kind of
illusion.
Thus, some art collectors set about collecting rare and original pieces,
whose quality differed largely from the objects that had been transported
138
Chapter Seven
in vast quantities for over a century aboard the French East India
Companys ships. It is necessary, however, to distinguish between two
types of collectors: the art loverswhose priorities were of an aesthetic
natureand the scholars, who were first and foremost seeking to improve
their rather vague knowledge of the Far East through the observation and
study of Chinese pieces.
Henri-Leonard Bertin, the Chinese Scholar

The study of the fascination with all things Chinese has, in recent years,
profited from some important discoveries in both the evolution of
collectors taste and in its influence on decorative arts. On the other hand,
our knowledge about the existence of Chinese collections owned by the
members of the learned circles of society remains incomplete, since we
have very little or no information at all about their initiators. It is generally
estimated that the decline in public interest in Chinoiserie as a fashionable
design source can be dated to around 1750, while, in fact, some learned
collectors continued to acquire Chinese art for their own collections well
after this date.1 These more scholarly collectors wanted to study the people
and techniques of China and had therefore turned their cabinets, following
the example of Bertin, into fortresses of knowledge regarding these parts
of the world and their production.
Henri-Lonard Bertin (1720-1792) is well-known to French historians:
he was a minister for over twenty years in the reigns of Louis XV and of
Louis XVI.2 Bertin, who kept up regular correspondence with Jesuit
missionaries in China, is also known by sinologists as the person who
commissioned the famous Mmoires concernant lhistoire, les sciences,
les arts, les murs, les usages des Chinois, which he published from 1776
1 Cordier 1910a and b; Glorieux 2002; Jarry 1981; Brunel et al. 2007.
2 The remit of the Ministry of Bertin was discribed in LAlmanach royal (1764):
la Compagnie des Indes et les diffrents commerces dont elle a le privilge; les
manufactures de coton, de mousselines et dtoffes limitation de celles des
Indes; les manufactures de porcelaine; lagriculture et les socits dagriculture; les
mines, leurs concessions et exploitations; les haras et les coles de mdecine
vtrinaires; la navigation dans lintrieur du royaume, les canaux faits ou faire,
lexercice ou concession de leur privilge; les carosses publics, fiacres,
messageries et autres voitures tant pour terre que pour eau, lexception de celle
de la Cour; le roulage; les petites postes, leurs tablissements, rgie et
administration, et les travaux ordonns en diffrents temps par le Roy ce sujet;
les loteries existantes, leur tablissement et employ lexception de celle de
lEcole Militaire; lchange de la rincipaut des Dombres et ses sites, ses revenus,
ses positions; les dons, brevets et expditions, qui dpendent de son department.
139
to 1791. Nonetheless, Bertin is little known to art historians. The bestknown link to the art world, is his collaboration in the execution of a series
of engravings entitled Batailles de lempereur de Chine made by Cochin
from 1767 to 1774.3 However, Bertin deserves a place of honour when it
comes to writing the history of taste for China in the eighteenth-century.
There we might ask which paths Bertin, the Chinese followed in
order to form his cabinet? What were the objects and paintings that made
up his collections and how much did they differ from the Chinese curios
that had been so appreciated by a non-specialist public only a few years
earlier? How do we define their influence on his contemporaries? And
finally, is it possible to discern, through the case study of Bertins collection,
the expression of a clear break with the previous practice of exotic
collecting, i.e. a clear shift from the straightforward search for curiosities
to the more complex endeavour of scholarship?
Bertins Collection
The minister did not start in earnest to collect objects and paintings from
China until 1765. Around this time he made it possible for two young
Chinese men, who had recently been ordained as priests, to travel back to
their country, using ships of the French East India Company; the Company
which came under the authority of Bertins ministry.4 His interest in China
had nonetheless started some years before that date. Several of the issues
that he had to work on during his career introduced him to the Chinese
craftsmanship, like silk manufacturing.5 Another technique was that of
hard-paste porcelain making, which in France had to await the discovery
of kaolin in 1768, although it was already in production at Meissen. Bertin
3 Qianlong, the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, which ruled over China
between 1735 and 1796, had decided to send a series of drawings representing the
views of battle against Eleuthes, to commemorate his victory. Engravings were to
be made in France, adapted from the originals. Bertin had given the Marquis de
Marigny the responsibility of picking out engravers. The directorship of the project
was given to Charles-Nicolas Cochin.
4 The two Chinese were Aloys Kao and Etienne Yang. They were sent to France
for training by the Jesuit order. Bertin took them under his wing: he believed that
the two young men could help furthering knowledge about science and the arts of
China in France.
5 In 1754, Bertin was appointed Intendant to Lyon. To participate in the
movement to protect and promote the breeding of silkworms, he wanted to attract
silkworm breeders in Lyon in order to strengthen the Lyon silk industry. Bertin,
passionate about silk factory, wanted at the same time to settle at his estate of
Bourdeilles (in Prigord) a silk factory as a kind of model manufacture.
140
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was therefore aware, throughout his career, just how profitable Chinese
artisan knowledge might be to France. The origin of his collections was
directly linked with his desire to discover these techniques.
In 1787, Luc-Vincent Thiry published his Guide des amateurs et des
trangers voyageurs Paris, in which he gave an account of the Chinese
collections in Bertins cabinet: he emphasised the fact that Bertin was able
to amass his collections thanks to his contacts with the Jesuits from
Beijing which went on for over twenty years. In his account, Thiry talks
about the objects usually contained in collections, such as stones,
garments, lacquers, porcelain, earthenware and Chinese ink stones, but he
also talks about a large collection of musical instruments and mentions a
collection of Chinese coins.6 However, what really made this collection so
original were the paintings and precious albums of prints. Indeed, this
collection went far beyond a mere display of works of the Jesuit painters
living at the court of the emperor. The albums and paintings in question
were genuine Chinese works of high quality. Some of them were very
ancient, while the others had been commissioned by Chinese emperors
themselves. These albums survive practically undamaged to this day and
are kept at the French National Library, mostly in the Department of
Oriental Manuscripts. As for the works of art from Bertins collections
which were made by missionaries, they are kept in the Department of
Engravings. The following treasures were once part of Bertins cabinet:
x
The Trait sur le calendrier et sur la musique, collection des petites
danses de la cour des Han object of study for Amiot, Bertins most regular
correspondent.7
x
The Motifs illustrs des objets rituels de la cour impriale, en dix-huit
chapitres: a xylographic edition printed by the imperial printing press in 1760.8
The album is made up of 16 volumes contained in four silk-covered cases with
a two-part bone clasp. The richly illustrated edition contains explanatory notes
on each presented artefact: ritual bronze vases, astronomical devices,
costumes, musical instruments, weapons etc.
6 On remarque entrautres dans son cabinet 1 La collection la plus complte qui
existe en Europe, des instruments de musique usits la Chine, tant aujourdhui
que dans les temps les plus reculs [], 2 Les pierres les plus estimes des
Chinois, telles que la pierre de lard [], 3 Des habits & ornements de Mandarins
[], des vernis prcieux, dont la plupart viennent du palais de lEmpereur de
Chine [], des porcelaines de la manufacture impriale, des poteries trs fines
[], des tableaux de divers genres [] leurs monnoies, tant anciennes que
modernes. Luc-Vincent 1786-1787, 134-6.
7 National Library of France, Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Chinois, 3211.
8 Ibid. 2289-2304.
141
x
The Catalogue imprial entirement illustr de la collection de
numismatique et dantiquit du palais Xiqing realised around 1755.9 This
xylographic, high-quality edition, composed of 40 unbound volumes, is
decorated with full-page illustrations and contains notes on over a thousand
objects, most of them bronze antiquities. The notes comprise the copies of the
engravings etched on the objects, their size and some historical background
referring to the objects. This work was part of a series of albums dedicated to
the inventory of paintings, calligraphies, Chinese ink stones and other objects
belonging to the imperial court.
x
The Tableau commmoratif de la noble Dame Lai accueillant le
palanquin imprial, an 11ft 5in long (3.42 meters) polychromatic silk
painting.10 The painting depicts the imperial cortge as the Emperor Kangxi
entered Beijing on his sixtieth birthday in 1713; it commemorates the exact
moment of the emperors cortge halting in order to pay their respects to the
mother of Laidu, a former minister at the court.
x
The Recueil de pains denre de la famille Cheng dating from 1606.11 One
can easily imagine this Anthology lying on Bertins desk surrounded by a few
Chinese ink stones, since in China an ink stone was considered to be one of the
four most distinguished treasures of a scholar.
This simple list of albums in Bertins collection would certainly be enough

to distinguish it from any conventional collection of Chinoiseries. But
the quality and refinement of the objects in the collection also needs
mentioning. Bertin acquired these through the good services of the Jesuits
in China. In order to ensure the Jesuits position at the imperial court and
to demonstrate the superior sophistication of French art, Bertin organised
regular shipments of diplomatic gifts of French works of art to the Jesuits
who then presented them to the learned people at court and to the emperor.
In addition to a number of porcelain objects, Bertin sent some crystal
chandeliers, tapestries, portrait busts of the king or the queen of France, as
well as paintings and engravings.
Although these works of fine and decorative art were quite separate
from Bertins own collection, they and the Jesuits privileged position at
the court of the emperor of China kept indirectly feeding Bertins
possessions, since the monks were able to gather (and pass on to him)
crates full of works of art and paintings whose quality went beyond
anything that could have been acquired in Canton at the time. It is for this
9 National Library of France, Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Chinois 11381143.
10 National Library of France, Department of Prints and Photographs, DF 8 format
5, rs.
11 National Library of France, Department of Oriental Manuscripts, Chinois,
1134-1137.
142
Chapter Seven
reason that we can eventually find following objects listed in the sales
catalogues of Bertins collection (1815 and 1828): a large porcelain vase
sent by the emperor as tangible proof of the great age of Chinese
production of glazed porcelain and four little cups with their saucers
coming directly from the emperors cabinet.12
The minister put together his collection with considerable care and this
went hand in hand with, as might be expected, special attention given to
the organisation of his cabinet. Several manuscripts revealed rather
ambitious projects for his collections which, in 1787, were still being kept
in Paris, rue Neuve des Capucines. One of the manuscripts, now at the
library of lInstitut National dHistoire de lArt, refers to an astonishing
idea (which Bertin obviously never realised) to have a Chinese house
built on terrain converted into terraces in the gardens of his estate in
Chatou.13 Furthermore, this manuscript reveals that he wanted the house to
have a Chinese-type roof embellished with some dragons. He also
imported mother-of-pearl windows from China for galleries that he
planned to have built around a square garden. Bertin was so anxious to
observe Chinese rules in matters of taste and architecture that he insisted
that his correspondent have the plans approved by a Chinese architect.
The second manuscript, which was discovered in the library of the
French Institute, was written by Amiot in 1790.14 It refers to the collectors
wishes regarding the disposition of his Chinese cabinet in Chatou. Bertin
was attached to the idea of constructing the most authentic cabinet
possible because he wanted a genuine setting for his collections, arranged
according to Chinese habits and practices. So, once again, it was Amiots
task to give him the necessary advice. Father Amiot recommended, among
other things, shortening the cabinet room by setting up a partition wall of
wooden planks on each side and by placing a roof between the two
partitions. The centre of the room thus divided was to be occupied by a
ting; the eastern part of the room was to be devoted to Bertins personal
cabinet or chou-fang; and in the western part, a small tso-fang or
laboratory was to be built. All the openings were to be embellished by
bamboo curtains that Amiot had sent him. As for the back of the room, he
12 Notice des articles curieux composant le cabinet chinois de feu M. Bertin [],
Paris: impr.de Crapelet, 1815 and Catalogue de peintures chinoises et persanes
[] de bronze, laques et porcelaines de la Chine, de lettres autographes,
manuscrits [] livres modernes, de tableaux [] portrait de La Fontaine par
Lebrun []. Paris: Moreau, 1828.
13 Bertin moved permanently to Chatou in 1781.
14 Library of the French Institute, Correspondance des RR. PP. Jsuites
missionnaires en Chine avec H.-L.-J.-B. Bertin, ms.1517, fol. 139.
143
advised Bertin to put up a Chinese inscription that read A Wise Man is

not an Instrument and he reminded Bertin that he ought to give a special
place to Chinese celestial maps. Enclosed with the letter was a drawing in
Amiots own hand, illustrating his suggestions.
The size, quality and originality of this collection would probably have
satisfied most eighteenth-century art lovers. But, as Bertin was an ambitious
and enlightened collector, he gave serious consideration to the best way in
which to spread influence and gain a reputation that would ensure that his
project would last. By 1787 his collections had been seen and even studied
by many scholars and artists and that same year Luc-Vincent Thiry
informed his readers that it was possible for them to see Bertins
collections. Bertin wrote the following to one of his correspondents in
Beijing: I have built a cabinet where everything you send me from China
is carefully kept and available to all those who, having read your memoirs
might be curious to see, to compare or even to analyse the originals.15 He
then added: I shall invite chemists to analyse the products which may be
unknown to them, physicists to classify them and artists to make the most
of the resources and new ideas that the collections could give them.16
The scholars who belonged to the collectors intimate circle answered
Bertins call favourably. Many of them had become collectors themselves,
asking the minister to order objects for them or even establishing contacts
with Beijing on their own. A certain number even made all the conclusions
drawn from observations of their collections available to the public. In
1803 Louis-Franois Delatour, secretary to the king, published his Essai
sur larchitecture des Chinois, sur leurs jardins, leurs principes de
mdecine, leurs murs et usages. In 1783, Marie-Louis-Josph dAlbert
dAilly, duc de Chaulnes published a Mmoire sur la manire de peindre
des Chinois sur leur papier avec leurs couleurs, which he presented at the
Academy of Science the following year. The duc de Chaulnes, better
known as Vidame dAmiens when attending house sales following a
death, was an extravagant chemist and also slightly mad, according to
current rumours. He had devoted himself to uncovering the mystery of
Chinese painting. For this purpose he chose, from his own and Bertins
collections, some of the most attractive paintings in terms of vivacious
15 Original quote in French: Jai form un cabinet o tout ce que vous menvoyez
de la Chine est conserv prcieusement pour en donner communication tous ceux
qui, ayant acquis vos mmoires, seront curieux de voir, de comparer, danalyser
mme les originaux. Library of French Institute, ms 1522, fol. 54.
16 Ibid.: Jinviterai les chimistes analyser les productions qui leur seront
inconnues, les physiciens les classer, et les artistes profiter des ressources et des
ides nouvelles que pourront leur offrir les collections.
144
Chapter Seven
colour and then had them painstakingly copied by unknown French

painters. As the paintings were being copied, he would adapt the
techniques and tools used, so as to equal those colours.
Bertin wished to ensure a large audience for the artistic models
originating from his cabinet, an audience that would surpass the scholarly
circle around which it was constructed and so he entrusted several articles
from his collections to some of the better known artists. In c.1775, the
sculptor Josse-Franois-Joseph Le Riche, a model maker at the French
porcelain factory Manufacture de Svres, made a small porcelain statue
after the head-and-shoulders portrait of the Emperor Qianlong which Panzi
had sent to Bertin several years earlier. In 1776, the painter Charles-Eloi
Asselin portrayed the emperor on a marble slab after the same model.
Finally, an engraved portrait which forms the frontispiece of the first
volume of Mmoires concernant lhistoire, les sciences, les arts, les
murs, les usages des Chinois was made by the engraver Franois-Nicolas
Martinez.
In order to make the most of the numerous advantages of engraving,
Bertin entrusted once again, certainly in the mid-1780s, several of his
albums to the engraver Isidore-Stanislas Helman, the same artist who, in
1784, had been chosen to make the miniature engravings for the
Conqutes de lempereur de Chine.17 The engraving entitled Marche
ordinaire de lempereur de Chine lorsquil passe dans la ville de Pkin
was thus published in 1786.18 Helman made sure to comment at the
bottom of the plate: This engraving is made after a gouache painting []
belonging to the cabinet of Monsieur Bertin, a former Minister of the
State. He was referring, of course, to the Tableau commmoratif de la
noble dame Lai accueillant la palanquin imprial cited earlier.19 We owe
him two other works related to Bertin: the Abrg historique des
principaux traits de la vie de Confucius, clbre philosophe chinois orn
de 24 estampes [] graves daprs des dessins originaux de la Chine
[] tirs du cabinet de M. Bertin and, dating from 1788, the Faits
mmorables des Empereurs de la Chine tirs des annales chinoises []
orns de 24 estampes [] daprs les dessins originaux tirs du cabinet
de M. Bertin.
The fact that the diffusion of images of his collections went far beyond
the eighteenth-century is sufficient evidence of just how successful
Bertins approach was. More than twenty years after the collector had died
17 Helman 1784.
18 National Library of France, Department Prints and Photographs.
19 National Library of France, Departments of Oriental Manuscripts.
145
and his collections were broken up,20 Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Breton de la

Martinire published La Chine en miniatures, ou Choix de costumes, arts
et mtiers de cet Empire, Reprsents par 74 gravures, la plupart daprs
les originaux indits du Cabinet de feu M. Bertin, Ministre; accompagns
de Notices explicatives et littraires tire en partie de la correspondance
non imprime des Missionnaires avec le Ministre. As was to be expected,
Breton de la Martinire and especially Isidore-Stanislas Helman, far from
favouring an exact imitation of Chinese art of which they could find
extremely precise models in Bertins albums, and rather in the manner of
true heirs to the long tradition of interpretation of the exotic motifs by
European artists, moved away from the original image. They simplified
the composition by limiting the details and frequently made mistakes
concerning the meaning of the images. We might say that Bertins
ambition and his project of diffusion encountered their limits herethe art
of appropriation and the tried-and-tested filter of European taste prevented
the general public from discovering the true originality of Bertins
collections, namely his intentions of making authentic Chinese graphic art
known as it was.
Exotic works of art allowed Bertin to extend the limits of his own
visual culture, as had been the case with other art lovers in the seventeenth
and eighteenth-century. As a collector of considerable taste he enjoyed the
refinement of the most precious items. But contrary to those who
considered Chinese collections to be simply an illustration of an extravagant
fantasy, exhibiting them as objects of luxury and curiosity, the minister
designed his Chinese cabinet as a true study room, finding in the
sophistication of the objects the possibility to improve the arts and
techniques in France. Indeed, a number of manuscripts from the East and
Far East had found their way into the library of the king and some
20 The Revolution led Bertin to flee France and in Aix-la-Chapelle he opted for
exile. The estate of Chatou found a buyer in 1791, with Maria Theresa of PelserBerensberg. Bertin died at Spa in 1792. With the law of confiscation of property of
emigrants, considered national property, in 1792, part of Bertins collections was
transferred to the dpt de Nesle in 1794. The fate of the rest of the collection is
more difficult to trace: probable dispersal from 1791 through the acquisition of
objects, paintings and correspondence, by booksellers Nepveu and Huzard in
particular. Objects that were transferred to the dpt de Nesle are now in the
collections of Departments of Prints and Photographs, Oriental Manuscripts and
Occidental Manuscripts. The Mmoires concernant les Chinois are in the
collections of the National Library of France since 1796. Correspondence with the
Jesuits, previously kept by Baron Delessert, has been at the library of the French
Institute since 1874.
146
Chapter Seven
ministers since the late seventeenth century. However, the projects and the
ambitions of their owners were far from those of someone like Bertin who,
as a result of his extensive knowledge and insatiable curiosity,
demonstrated that he wanted to pass on his knowledge to scholars and to
art lovers. That was how the minister, a man of inquiring and stubborn
mind, managed to awaken great interest regarding his own research in
different circles: among the Jesuit missionaries in China, among the
learned people of the Chinese court and even in the emperor himself, as
well as in France among scholars, the entire Royal court and numerous
artists. He thus moved away from the traditional image of the solitary
scholar secluded in his study, as well as from the widespread image of an
admirer succumbing to a short-lived interest in Chinese art.
We may therefore assume that the China of Bertins cabinet turned its
back on its province of rococo image, as defined by the Goncourt
brothers in regard to the works of Franois Boucher. Bertins cabinet was
a showcase of the art of the imperial court in the seventeenth and
eighteenth-century but its spirit was no longer limited only to aesthetic
qualities and as such it was not just a case of attraction to the exoticism of
the other. From then on, the customs and productions of the other
could be described in accordance with new aspirations of several
collectors more interested in observations than in fantasy. As for the works
of exotic art, they could now progressively leave the field of sheer
curiosity and enter, step by step, the long process by which our scientific
knowledge about the Orient was built.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE OLGA-JULIA WEGENER AND ARTHUR
MORRISON COLLECTIONS OF CHINESE
PAINTINGS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
MICHELLE YING-LING HUANG
In the first decade of the twentieth century, public museums in Europe and
America were enthusiastic about acquiring works of Japanese and Chinese
art directly from their countries of origin and as a result sent curators to
Japan and China to conduct research into East Asian art. This phenomenon
was concurrent with the mania for Chinese antiquities that developed in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the governments of
Britain, Russia, France, Germany, America and other countries sent numerous
archaeological expeditions to the provinces of Sinkiang (Xinjiang) and Kansu
(Gansu) in western China to excavate cultural relics of Buddhist art.1
To maintain its leading role as collector of world cultures, the British
Museum expanded its collections of Oriental art with specimens of high
quality and rarity. Following the acquisition of an early Chinese
handscroll, Admonitions of the Court Instructress (Nushi zhen tu), in
2
1903, a large number of seventh- to tenth-century Buddhist paintings,
I acknowledge with gratitude the generous support of the Wilhelmina BarnsGraham Charitable Trust for my research of this paper.
1 For information about the dispersion of Chinese antiquities and Dunhuang relics,
see Chen 2001, 63-90, 107-14; The International Dunhuang Project (IDP),
http://idp.bl.uk/.
2 The Admonitions scroll was acquired from the Indian Army cavalry officer,
Captain Clarence A. K. Johnson, at 25. It was formerly attributed to Gu Kaizhi of
the Eastern Jin dynasty (AD 317-420), but is now generally considered to be a Tang
dynasty (AD 618-907) copy of the original. For the British Museums acquisition of
the scroll, see Captain C. Johnson to Sir Sidney Colvin, 7 January and 21 March
1903, LBPD, BM; MMTSC, BMCA, vol. 51, 1804. Also see Huang 2010a.
148
Chapter Eight
manuscripts, textiles and other objects were removed from Cave 17 at the
Caves of the Thousand Buddhas (Qianfodong) near Dunhuang by Sir
3
Marc Aurel Stein in 1906-8 during his second Central-Asian expedition.
These archaeological proceeds recovered from western China were of
exceptional importance and became primary sources for the study of
Buddhist art and the civilisation of early China.
The Assistant Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum,
Laurence Binyon, who was assigned to supervise work on the Stein
collection, was anxious to maintain the Museums eminence in its
collection of Oriental painting. It was competition among Western
museums that encouraged Sir Sidney Colvin, Keeper of Prints and
Drawings, and Binyon to propose the purchase of the Olga-Julia Wegener
collection of Chinese paintings in 1910, and to accept a gift of the Arthur
Morrison collection of Japanese and Chinese paintings in 1913, thus
enhancing Britains national collection in its rivalry with Germany and
France. Increased knowledge and new acquisitions resulted in the
establishment of a Sub-department of Oriental Prints and Drawings at the
British Museum in 1913, with Binyon in charge.
While the Stein collection of Buddhist art has been extensively studied
by modern scholars, little has hitherto been written about the Olga-Julia
4
Wegener and Arthur Morrison collections. To remedy this omission, this
paper aims to reconstruct historical details of the acquisition of the two
collections and to examine the historical and aesthetic value of their
Chinese paintings. I will illuminate Binyons role in instituting the
independent section of Oriental prints and drawings at the British
Museum. I will also map out his social network with collectors and artists
in Britain, Germany and America.
The Purchase of the Wegener Collection

Between 1907 and 1909 Olga-Julia Wegener (Fig. 31), wife of Professor
Georg Wegener, Secretary of the Berlin Geographical Society, built her
collection of Chinese art in China. According to the German architect
3 Stein made his second Central-Asian expedition on the joint initiative of the
India Office and the Trustees of the British Museum. On this trip, he discovered
over 20,000 pieces of silk paintings, embroideries, textiles, sculptures, wood
carvings, fragments of frescoes, manuscripts and other objects in various sites. For
details, see Stein 1912, 1921a and 1921b.
4 My recent discussion of the Wegener collection was published in Huang 2010b
and 2013.
The Olga-Julia Wegener and Arthur Morrison Collections of Paintings
149
Ernst von Boerschmann, who met Frau Wegener at the Embassy in Peking
(Beijing) between March and May 1908, Olga-Julia had a strong
personality and felt confident about her taste in Chinese art. At a time
when Chinese art was still under-valued in the West, Olga-Julia Wegener
was one of the pioneering German collectors of Chinese paintings,
ceramics, bronzes, wood carvings, belt buckles and other objects. While
her husband was on an expedition to Kiangsi (Jiangxi) in January 1907,
Olga-Julia Wegener went to Peking for a short stay. Then, between
January 1908 and April 1909, she planned her next visit to China. The
acquisitions she made in this period formed the major part of her Chinese
5
collection. In 1912, she returned to China and in Peking, the centre of art
trading, she made daily visits to art dealers and collectors. Although OlgaJulia Wegeners understanding of Chinese art did not reflect any formal
training, she became a recognised authority on Chinese art amongst her
circle of art lovers.6 Nonetheless, the purchase of the Wegener collection
was declined by the Berlin Museums because of its high price and
questionable quality. Moreover, according to the General Director of the
Berlin Museums, Wilhelm von Bode, the German Emperor had little
liking for the Chinese race and its art and did not appreciate the heavily
over-painted quality and high price of the Wegener collection.7 The
German collector of Chinese art, Ernst Arthur Voretzsch, also suggested
that some Chinese paintings in the collection were imitations.8
In contrast, the Wegener collection was much appreciated and valued
by collectors, connoisseurs and artists in Britain. On 19 July 1909, OlgaJulia Wegener made her first visit to the Print Room of the British
Museum, and on 30 October, showed Binyon her collection of Chinese
paintings.9 The next day, the German painter Gtz von Seckendorff wrote
to Colvin, encouraging the British Museum to secure the Wegener
collection:
5 For Frau Wegeners experience of acquiring Chinese paintings in Peking in

1908, see Wegener 1910, 191-2.
6 See von Boerschmann 1940, 3-5.
7 The German Emperor probably disliked the heavy use of colours and decorative
details in some of Wegeners paintings. See von Bode 1907, 231-2.
8 See Ernst A. Voretzsch to Charles Lang Freer, 21 July 1910, CLFP, FGA, Box
24, Folder 12. For controversies over the dating and quality of the Wegener
collection, see Huang 2013.
9 Between December 1909 and February 1910 Frau Wegener visited the Print Room
two to three times a week in order to deal with the sale of her collection of Chinese
paintings. See Visitor Books of the Print Room, the British Museum, vol. 20.
Chapter Eight
150
Indeed the Collection of early Chinese hangings brought home by Frau

von Wegener is a most unique and valuable one, and I am sorry it has
not remained at Berlin. It would have admirably completed our Chinese
Collection. But as it has not been done, no country like England would
value it more and appreciate it. You must not let it go and I am sure
benevolent people like Sir T. Wernher or Mr. Beit would help in seeing
this fine collection remain in England.10
Figure 31: Frau Olga-Julia Wegener standing next to Tiger by Torrent, attributed to
Muqi (active thirteenth century), in the exhibition of her collection of Chinese
painting at the Royal Academy of the Arts in Berlin between 9 December 1908 and
10 January 1909 (photo: reproduced from Georg Wegener, Madeleine: Ein Strauss
aus unserm Garten. Olga-Julia, zum 21. Mrz 1910, unserem zehnten
Hochzeitstag [1910]).
Colvin believed that

the great qualities of the older Chinese masters are just beginning to be
fully realized in Europe, and will assuredly be more & more valued and
studied as time goes on.11
On 6 November 1909, he recommended the acquisition of the Wegener

collection for 9,000, with some 120 to 150 pieces out of 220 Chinese
10 [Gtz von] Seckendorff to Colvin, 31 October 1909, LBPD, BM.
11 Colvin to the Trustees, 6 November 1909, OP, BMCA, vol. 106, P No. 4002.
151
paintings being bought at a reduced price. Colvin stressed that [n]o such
12
collection was ever brought to Europe before. He believed that the
Wegener collection of Chinese paintings included a certain number of
important works and a representative variety of both subjects and styles.
To secure the purchase of the Wegener collection, Binyon went to some
efforts to raise funds by private subscription. On 9 November 1909, he
enlisted the help of his friend, the artist William Rothenstein:
We have no money, but desperately want to get it & are trying to get
subscribers. If you know of anybody that would be likely & able to help,
we should be so grateful if you could tell them [] the collection is a
really important one [] Frau Wegener made a thorough study of our
collection before going out, so did not buy haphazard.
I want to impress people with the fact that here is a chance for
England to show herself the foremost to appreciate an art that is going to
be more & more valued. Freer of Detroit is now in China: so you may be
sure prices will go up fast.13
The price of the Wegener collection was considered enormous in

comparison with the 3,000 paid for the William Anderson collection of
Japanese and Chinese paintings acquired by the British Museum in 1881.14
What attracted Binyon was probably that the Wegener collection was
acquired in China, rather than Japan.
By 1910 the popularity of early Chinese art had generated increasing
demand for it in the art markets of China, Japan, Europe and America, but
the rising price of Chinese painting was unfortunate for the British
Museums tight acquisition budget. At the same time, competition
between public museums and private collectors in Europe and America
placed considerable pressure on Binyon, who was the key person
responsible for enriching the British Museums collections of Oriental
paintings. Although the American millionaire and renowned collector,
Charles Lang Freer, kept Binyon informed about his new acquisitions in
China, the two men were actually in competition for fine specimens of
Chinese painting in order to maintain the strengths and leading position of
their countries collections. Unlike Freer, who had abundant financial
resources to purchase fine objects directly from China, Binyon had to raise
12 See ibid.
13 See Binyon to William Rothenstein, 9 November 1909, Sir William
Rothenstein Correspondence and Other Papers, MS Eng 1148 (126), Houghton
Library, Harvard University.
14 For a comparison of the two collections of Chinese paintings, see Huang 2010b,
279-87.
152
Chapter Eight
funds from the Trustees of the British Museum and other private
contributors to secure the Wegener collection.
In the winter of 1909, Binyon only had a week to raise 4,000,
although he had already done much better than Colvin who seems unable
15
to get money. To attract more contributors, special guests, including
artists, art critics and collectors, were invited to a private view of the
Wegener collection in December 1909.16 The Dutch-born British painter
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema found the paintings of birds, flowers, animals,
figures all equally valuable and of a high standard, while the writercollector Arthur Morrison praised the collection as an extraordinarily fine
and valuable lot which included so many of the first importance and
17
scarcity. Other leading figures in the art world, including Roger Fry,
Charles Ricketts and Bernard Berenson, also enthusiastically advocated its
purchase.18
Although Binyons American and German friends, including Freer
and Voretzsch, did not much appreciate the historical value and artistic
quality of the Wegener collection, Colvin continued to press for a grant of
2,000 from the Reserve Fund, detailing his reasons in his report to the
Trustees:
Chinese painting, in comparison with Japanese, is now only beginning to
attract in the West the attention it deserves. Prices, very high already, are
sure to rise [...] With reference to Frau Wegeners price, 7,500, a
collection of this kind is very difficult to value, since its best pieces are
of a kind which hardly ever occur in the market. According to the best
advice which Mr. Colvin is able to obtain, some four or five of its most
rare and ancient pieces would be likely to sell in Japan, Paris or America
for quite 3,500, possibly much more.19
On 12 February 1910, with special funds from almost thirty contributors

and with recommendations provided by artists, art critics and collectors,
15 See Binyon to Robert Ross, Winter 1909, in Ross 1952, 175-6. A hand-written
copy of the letter dated 1910, with the same content, is kept in ALB, vol. 75.
16 Selected paintings of the Wegener collection were possibly shown to potential
contributors between December 1909 and January 1910. Laurence Binyon to
Cicely Binyon, 3 January 1910, ALB, vol. 61.
17 Alma-Tadema to Colvin, 11 December 1909; Morrison to Colvin, 13 January
1910, OP, BMCA, vol. 106, P No 504.
18 See Colvin to the Trustees, 11 February 1910, OP, BMCA, vol. 107, P No. 504.
19 The four or five ancient pieces may refer to those paintings attributed to the
Tang and Song dynasties by Frau Wegener, such as A Little Pony and Geese. See
ibid.
153
the Trustees of the British Museum sanctioned the purchase of 145

Chinese paintings of the Frau Olga-Julia Wegener Collection, dating
20
from AD 800 to 1800, for 7,500.
The Historical and Aesthetic Value of Wegeners Chinese

Paintings
The Wegener collection was a catalyst for boosting British interest in
traditional Chinese painting. After the single purchase of the Admonitions
scroll, a treasure originally kept in the imperial collection in Peking, the
Wegener collection was the first important collection brought from China
itself to Britain and exhibited aspects of the art which find little or no
reflection in the painting of Japan.21 According to the online database
records of the British Museum, about 70% of the pictures in the Wegener
22
collection were executed in ink and colours on silk. 95% of the paintings
were hanging scrolls, with only a few handscrolls and album leaves
bearing Wegeners collecting seal in Chinese characters: Wei sa shi. Frau
Wegener had a strong preference for Daoist and Buddhist subject, birds
and flowers, as well as portraits of men and women, while about 30% of
the paintings showed the scenes of animals, landscapes, as well as plants
and insects.
Although a dozen works were originally attributed to Tang (AD 61823
907), Song (AD 960-1279) and Yuan (AD 1271-1368) painters, some
20 Although the Minutes of 12 February 1910 noted that 145 Chinese ink paintings
were purchased from Frau Wegener, only 136 items, comprising 150 pieces of
hanging scrolls, handscrolls and album leaves, were recorded with individual
registration numbers on the same day. See Colvin to the Director and the Trustees,
6 November 1909, OP, BMCA, vol. 106, P No. 4002; 11 February 1910, vol. 107,
P No. 504; 29 March 1910, vol. 108, P No. 1573. Also see MMTSC, BMCA, 13
November 1909, vol. 54, 2649; 12 February 1910, vol. 55, 2679; Print Room
Register of Purchases and Presentations, the British Museum, vol. 51.
21 The Times 1910a, 8.
22 The calculation is based on the 118 Chinese paintings recorded in the British
Museums online database in October 2012, of which 116 pictures were purchased
from Frau Wegener in February 1910 and two works were donated by the collector
in December 1909 and February 1910. Although there is a discrepancy between
the total number of paintings purchased and registered in the Museums early and
recent records, the data analysis would still reveal the dominant taste and also what
kinds of paintings were added to the British collection at the time.
23 See Print Room Register of Purchases and Presentations, the British Museum,
vol. 51.
154
Chapter Eight
Chinese paintings were not of the period claimed for them. About 20% of
the pictures were produced in the Ming (1368-1644) dynasty and 60% in
24
the Qing (1644-1911) dynasty. Whilst a mania for Chinese painting
prevailed in Europe around 1910, works of art in both Asian and Western
markets were not always genuine, some being copies produced by painters
in the Qing dynasty. An essay on The Popularity of Chinese Painting in
The Kokka: An Illustrated Monthly Journal of the Fine and Applied Arts of
Japan and Other Eastern Countries stated.
We have to-day too many cunning dealers in old curios who try their
best to sell counterfeit articles at [exorbitant] prices, and many unlucky
patrons of art fall victims to their malicious artifices.25
Olga-Julia Wegener was one of the unlucky patrons who fell into the trap
of cunning dealers in Peking. Her collection contained counterfeits
bearing the signatures and seals of famous artists and emperors. For
instance, Dog Barking in Snow outside House Gate includes a signature of
the Northern Song (AD 960-1127) master Fan Kuan and an imperial
collection stamp of the Xuanhe reign (1119-25). However, the stiff,
awkward trees, the clear division of ink tone in branches and mountain
layers, as well as the emphasis on foreground details, raise doubts about its
authenticity. Wegeners painting is very probably a fake produced by an
anonymous artist in the late Qing dynasty.
V. W. F. Collier also pointed out the inaccurate attribution of Wegeners
Pekingese Dogs:
[M]odern Chinese artists and picture dealers are the most inveterate
imitators, counterfeiters and forgers in the world. The western collector
usually falls an easy prey to their deceptions, which can only be guarded
against by the closest of specialized study. Some years ago Frau Olga [Julia] Wegener collected several pictures of the famous local breed of
dogs in Peking. The Wegener collection was exhibited in Germany, and
a small, but very inaccurate catalogue issued. The collection was
acquired in part by the British Museum, and, [...] too much reliance has
24 The attributions and dating of Chinese paintings in the Wegener collection have
subsequently been revised by curators at the British Museum. The records of
relevant paintings shown in the Museums online database are therefore not
identical with the information given by Wegener and Binyon in 1910.
25 The Kokka 1911, 4-5. This was a prestigious Japanese-English monthly journal
on East Asian art, mainly Japanese and Chinese paintings and sculptures from
temples and private collections. The woodcut colour plates, reproduced from the
classical works of Chinese and Japanese paintings, in the journal were collectibles.
155
been placed upon the statements of the collector regarding the authorship
and dates of the pictures [] No authentic painting of Pekingese dogs
older than the eighteenth century is known to exist outside the palace in
Peking. The Wegener pictures, ascribed to Shen Chen Lin and said to
date from 1700, are obvious counterfeits of recent date.26
Binyon admitted that in the British Museums collections of Oriental

paintings, many of the attributions of the older paintings are necessarily
tentative []. In some cases it will be found that paintings are placed with
the work of an earlier period than that to which they actually belong,
27
because [they are] deliberately executed in the earlier style. Although
the Wegener collection eventually turned out not to contain many genuine
works from early periods, Binyon found those he believed to be early
fascinating.
For instance, A Little Pony mistakenly attributed to Han Kan of the
Tang dynasty, the Tethered Horses claimed to be by Zhao Mengfu of the
Yuan dynasty, and the Daoist-inspired landscape painting The Earthly
Paradise, were among the most important works for Binyon. His favourite
painting was Geese, claimed to be by Zhao Chang (Fig. 32). The painting
was known as the best example showing the power of the Northern Song
artists to transport the ordinary objects of sight into the realm of idea
without abating one jot of their natural appearance, that is the rarest and
most magical achievement of art.28 It suggested the artists relation with
his subject as a matter of philosophy and expression of the human spirit,
which made Chinese painting fascinating and unique. Binyon asserted that
[t]his picture alone would give the Wegener collection a high distinction.29
26 Collier 1921, 189.

27 At the time, the task of determining the age and authenticity of Chinese painting
was difficult for Binyon. Binyon would look at the style and mood of the work in
order to ascribe it to a particular period or author. He discerned that the great
painters did not disdain to copy the works of their predecessors and that copies
often surpassed the originals. Thus, Binyon did not entirely despise imitations and
forgeries, but considered a copy as having a different meaning from that
attached to such a label in the West. See Binyon, Introduction in The British
Museum 1910, 10.
28 The Times 1910b, 11.
29 Binyon 1910, 256.
30 For the provenance of Peonies, see A-V&A, AM3579; Huang 2013
156
Chapter Eight
Figure 32: Claimed to be by Zhao Chang, Geese, late Qing dynasty, hanging scroll,
ink and colours on silk (photo Trustees of the British Museum).
It is remarkable that a hanging scroll of Peach Tree Bough (Fig. 33) which
represents longevity bore the seal of the late Empress Dowager Cixi. Its
auspicious meaning, style and composition were reminiscent of the
Peonies, a gift presented by Frau Wegener to the Victoria & Albert
Museum in July 1909. Both paintings were probably executed by Miao
Jiahui, one of Cixis female painters in service in the Good Fortune and
Prosperity Hall (Fuchang dian) of the Forbidden City, and had been given
157
Figure 33: Cixi [probably by Miao Jiahui], Peach Tree Bough, Qing dynasty,
hanging scroll, ink and colours on silk (photo Trustees of the British Museum).
Chapter Eight
158
to Olga-Julia Wegener during her residence in Peking in late 1908.30 Thus,

their provenance signified Olga-Julia Wegeners presence at the Qing court.
On the other hand, the Wegener collection contained some fine figure
paintings of a later date whose quality rests on form, composition and
brushstroke and which show an exquisite use of colour and line. Lady with
Shoulao is a good example to illustrate the peculiar, exaggerated and
individual style of the late Ming master Chen Hongshou. The standing
figures are painted in monumental size and distorted proportion, while the
angular contours of layered drapery suggest variations of force and
movement. The Qing religious works, including Heavenly Lady Scattering
Flowers by Xu Mei and an album leaf depicting a heavenly lady playing a
guqin on a flying dragon by Leng Mei, show rhythmic lines of flowing
drapery and clouds, sinuous grace of body movement, as well as the use of
gentle colour; all these make the immortal figures appear dynamic,
delicate and romantic. The sensuous representation and lively depiction of
figures can also be seen in a group portrait, Mirror-Polisher at the Door of
a Manchu Family Scene on New Years Morning by Xu Tingkun of the
Qing dynasty. A sense of harmony and happiness is not only expressed in
the facial expressions of women, children and the old men, but also in
their interactions with each other.
Chinese Paintings in the Morrison Collection

The Wegener collection encouraged Binyon to specialise in the neglected
subject of Chinese painting in Britain. While collectors and curators in
America, France and Germany, such as Charles Lang Freer, Ernst Groe
and Otto Kmmel, were increasingly aware of the importance of Asian
painting, Binyon felt the stress of developing an independent section for
the subject. To gain support from the Director of the British Museum, he
wrote to Sir Frederick Kenyon in September 1912:
The Continental Museums are having specials sections& beginning to
have special museumsfor the subject: the French, Germans, & Americans
have spent largely on missions to the East for purposes of study & collection:
& I feel that, while our collection of Far Eastern paintings & drawings is the
most important in Europe, I cannot keep up to the mark myself while I have
to give so much of time [] to other things. Quite apart from my own affairs
& I am sure it would be far better for the collection if I were able to devote
my whole energies to it & have real control.30

31 A photocopy of original manuscript from Binyon to Kenyon, September 1912,
159
Binyons argument convinced Kenyon, who recommended that the Treasury

should grant an allowance of 100 for the officer in charge of a new Subdepartment of Oriental Prints and Drawings, as well as an additional
31
Assistant. Naturally, Binyon, who was the only expert of Oriental
painting in the Museum, was nominated as the chief officer to take charge
of the Sub-department. He was thrilled when the good news from Kenyon
reached him during his stay at Freers house in Detroit in November
32
1912.
At Freers house and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Binyon was
impressed by the enormous collections of Oriental paintings which were
brought from Japan and China by pioneer collectors such as Ernest
Fenollosa and Okakura Kakuzo. This experience further deepened his
understanding of Oriental art and gave him new insights into carrying out
his curatorial works and research on the British Museums collections of
Japanese and Chinese paintings. On 12 April 1913, the Trustees approved
the proposal for the new Sub-department.33 Arthur Waley became
Binyons first Assistant in the Oriental section, to help with the translation
and cataloguing of Japanese and Chinese works. They set to work by
filling gaps and strengthening weak and inadequately represented aspects
of the British Museums collections of Oriental paintings.
One important duty was to catalogue the Arthur Morrison collection
of Japanese and Chinese paintings which was delivered to the British
Museum in April-May 1913. When the collection was offered for sale in
34
June 1912, Binyon was eager to find a benefactor to buy and present it to
the nation because he found that
It [the Morrison collection] is the finest private collection in Europe, &
would place the Museum beyond reach or rivalry, as no more fine
paintings will come out of Japan now. They are stricter than Italy about
letting them leave the country. Our present collection is poor [on] the
Japanese side. We shall never have such another chance, if Morrisons
collection leaves England.35
ALB, vol. 75.
31 MMTSC, BMCA, 12 October 1912, vol. 56, 2991-2.
32 A photocopy of the original manuscript from Binyon to Kenyon, 24 November
1912, ALB, vol. 73.
33 MMTSC, BMCA, 12 April 1913, vol. 56, 3075.
34 According to Binyon, Morrison offered his collection for sale to a millionaire at
35,000, but he would reduce the price considerably if it went to the nation. See
Binyon to Edward Marsh, 11 June 1912, ALB, vol. 74; Binyon to the Trustees, 1
March and 17 May 1913, Book of Presents, BMCA, vol. 34, P No. D447.
35 Binyon to Edward Marsh, 11 June 1912, ALB, vol. 74.
160
Chapter Eight
Its historical completeness makes it especially desirable for a Museum,
where the student expects to find characteristic examples of all the various
schools [] it fills up a number of deplorable gaps in the existing Museum
collection. It is strong where that collection is weak, and enriches it with
examples of eminent masters hitherto unrepresented.36
Finally, the Morrison collection, which comprised 589 Japanese paintings

and only thirty-two Chinese paintings, was presented as a gift by Sir
William Gwynne-Evans, Director of the Real Estate Corporation of South
Africa, to the British Museum. It was regarded as the finest and most
37
representative collection of its kind in Europe.
Arthur Morrison had, since 1890, formed a collection of works of art
from Japan and China, especially Japanese paintings, woodcuts and
porcelain. His articles on The Painters of Japan were published in the
Monthly Review between July 1902 and January 1903. A much richer and
more complete two-volume The Painters of Japan (1911) was published
nine years later, with guidance from Kohitsu Rynin from the Tokyo
Imperial Museum (now Tokyo National Museum) and assistance from
many of his Japanese friends. Through regular contact with the Print
Room,38 Binyon shared Morrisons interest in Chinese and Japanese
painting and admired his knowledge of Japanese art gained from native
Japanese artists and experts. With his honorary membership of the
Association of Japanese Art (Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai) and his authority
among Japanese scholars, Morrison surpassed other British collectors and
connoisseurs in both his judgments and knowledge, and also corrected
36 Binyon to the Trustees, 1 March 1913, Book of Presents, BMCA, vol. 34, P No.
D447.
37 According to the Register of 1 May 1913, 621 items were catalogued with
individual registration numbers, of which thirty-three works were categorised
under Chinese painting. However, the Amida and Two Adoring Beings which was
formerly attributed to Zhang Suigong of the Song dynasty is now re-authenticated
as a fourteenth-century Japanese painting entitled Amida sanson raigo zu. As a set
of album leaves was labelled with only one registration number, the total number
of pieces of Chinese and Japanese paintings would be more than 621. See
MMTSC, BMCA, 8 March, 12 April and 24 May 1913, vol. 56, 3064, 3075, 3099;
Register of Purchases and Presentations, Oriental Prints & Drawings, the British
Museum, London, vol. 1. For the value of Japanese paintings in the Morrison
collection, see The Times 1913, 8.
38 Arthur Morrisons name first appeared in the Visitor Book at Print Room on 3
and 22 December 1897, with other frequent visits made in subsequent years. See
Visitor Book at Print Room, the British Museum, vol. 12.
161
earlier writers inaccurate interpretations of Japanese art.39 Therefore,

Colvin and Binyon had confidence in Morrisons eye and taste for Oriental
art and considered him to be one of the chief experts able to assess new
acquisitions of Chinese paintings, including the Admonitions scroll and the
Olga-Julia Wegener collection. The small number of Chinese paintings
that Morrison collected was probably used for the purpose of comparison,
showing the close relationship of Chinese and Japanese painting, as in the
case of the collection of his contemporary, William Anderson. The thirtytwo Chinese paintings in the Morrison collection bore a collecting seal:
ARTHUR MORRISON carved in the style of a Chinese seal, which is
comparable to that used in the Wegener collection. About 80% of the
pictures were executed in ink and colours on silk. About 87% of them
were hanging scrolls, of which two were attributed to the Song dynasty,
depicting a herd boy riding an ox and carrying a dead pheasant in the
snow, as well as a blue-and-green landscape, and were painted in the style
of Zhao Lingrang and Guo Zhongshu, respectively. However, half of the
collection was dated in the Qing dynasty, with about 19% and 25% of the
Chinese paintings dated in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, respectively.40
Like Olga-Julia Wegener, Arthur Morrison had a strong preference for
religious motifs and figure paintings, but his favourite subject was birds
and flowers. Chinese paintings of animals, plants and insects took up a
relatively small portion in the two collections. As a result of his encounter
with the Geese painting in the Wegener collection, Binyon invariably held
the artistic expression of Song art in high regard when evaluating the
Chinese paintings in the Morrison collection. In Tiger by a Torrent,
attributed to Muqi, he admired the power and fierceness expressed by the
tiger. This painting also illustrated the imaginative feeling for wild
nature, mountains, mists and streams, which gives the Sung landscape so
41
modern an aspect. In Lady Lao Yu with a Phoenix (Fig. 34), painted in
39 Binyon praised Morrisons interpretation of Japanese art from the native point
of view and his discussion of the Tosa School which had been misconceived by
earlier writers, like Louis Gonse and William Anderson. He also acknowledged in
his Painting in the Far East (1908) that Morrisons knowledge and counsel had
long aided his study. Morrisons The Painters of Japan in the Monthly Review
(1902) was full of useful references for him. See Binyon 1911, 427-8; Binyon
[1923] 1959, ix-x.
40 The calculation is based on the thirty-two Chinese paintings recorded in the
British Museums online database in October 2012.
41 Binyon, II. Chinese Paintings, in the British Museum 1914a, 18-9.
Unfortunately, the painting Tiger by a Torrent cannot be found in the British
Museum storage because its picture has been cut out of the mounting. Hence, no
162
Chapter Eight
Figure 34: Painted in the style of Wu Wei, Lady Lao Yu with a Phoenix, Ming
dynasty, hanging scroll,ink and colours on silk (photo Trustees of the British
Museum.
the style of Wu Wei, Binyon also found a splendid example for illustrating
the largeness and nobility of Sung taste, but the more loose and free
brushwork was used in early Ming paintings.42 Other fine paintings of
animals and landscapes in the Morrison collection, including Rabbits and
Plum Blossom inscribed and sealed with the name of Shen Quan, a long
hanging scroll of Mountain Landscape claimed to be by Wen Zhengming,
image can be retrieved.
42 Ibid.
163
and a set of twelve album leaves of Landscape painted in the style of

Wang Hui, also showed the brushwork and spontaneous expression of the
Ming and Qing masters.
Conclusion
This historical study of the Wegener and Morrison collections in the
British Museum shows that Western museums and collectors expended
much effort in collecting early Chinese paintings in the early twentieth
century. Although the authorship, dates and artistic quality of some
Chinese paintings in the two collections were debatable, controversy
concerning attribution in itself reflected different levels of knowledge
among the people involved. At the time, Binyon was not able to judge the
authorship and dating of every Chinese scroll, but he was more concerned
about its subject matter, aesthetic ideas and philosophical connotations.
Because Colvin and Binyon had not travelled to China before 1913, their
lack of first-hand experience of local collectors and art dealers explains
why they relied heavily on the statements of Wegener and Morrison. In the
early twentieth century, Chinese painting was regularly seen through
Japanese spectacles in the West, thus it became common practice for
British curators to seek the advice of Western and Japanese scholars,
artists and restorers about the acquisition, exhibition, publication and
conservation of both Japanese and Chinese prints and paintings.
To showcase pride in its new acquisitions, between June 1910 and
April 1912, 237 works, including 109 Chinese paintings and 128 Japanese
pictures, were shown together in the Exhibition of Chinese and Japanese
Paintings, AD Fourth to Nineteenth Century in the Prints and Drawings
Gallery. Analysis of the Exhibition Guide of 1910 shows that about 42%
of the exhibits came from the recently acquired Wegener collection.
Binyon was particularly attracted by the simple design, profound mood
and universal character of the painting of Geese. He praised, [i]t is simply
life itself, aggrandized by no artifice, and yet it impresses us as something
43
august, as no longer a fact but an idea. In the exhibition review, Geese
was said to be painted as seriously as Rembrandt painted the portrait of a
44
man and as noble in design as the finest Greek sculpture. Colour was
subordinated to form and space, while the simple composition emphasised
43 Ibid., 13. Binyon mentioned in other writings about his admiration for Chinese
artists innate reverence for life, even for the life of the two geese; see Binyon
1935, 670.
44 The Times 1910c, 8.
164
Chapter Eight
the solitude and natural habitat of the geese. Its tranquil beauty of
execution, high quality of design, and the profound feeling for the interior
life of things, raised the work to the level of a great religious picture.
Nevertheless, not everyone could understand an animal in its historical and
philosophical context. Binyon told his wife Cicely about his frustration in
the Exhibition:
A lady, it seems, asked the policeman in the gallery how he liked the
pictures. He shook his head, & said they were not for the likes of him.
Pressed, he allowed that of course some arent so funny as other[s]. But
as to the Geese, they made such a fuss about, he had looked at it for
hours & it was just geese: he couldnt see why they should make so
much of it.45
The British publics knowledge of Chinese art was too limited to

understand the religious meaning behind the Geese painting, a task which
Binyon endeavoured to remedy after establishing the Sub-department of
Oriental Prints and Drawings.
At the same time, Binyon published several articles and books on
Japanese and Chinese painting, including The Flight of the Dragon (1911)
and Painting in the Far East (1908; rev. edition 1913, 1923, 1934). In
1914, he ambitiously mounted two special exhibitions of Chinese art at the
British Museum, further reinforcing a broader, cross-cultural horizon of
Asian art appreciation. In the Exhibition of Japanese and Chinese Painting
principally from the Arthur Morrison Collection, eighty-four Japanese
paintings and eight Chinese paintings were arranged for this temporary
46
show, while another eight Chinese paintings, four Japanese paintings and
one Indian painting were on display in a permanent exhibition at the end
of the same gallery. Daoist and Buddhist paintings were selected to echo
the theme of religious art in another special Exhibition of Paintings,
Manuscripts, and Other Archaeological Objects collected by Sir Aurel
Stein, K.C.I.E., in Chinese Turkestan opened on the ground floor of the
New Wing in May 1914.47 Unfortunately, the outbreak of the First World
War interrupted research on Chinese painting. It led to the subsequent
temporary closure of the Museum and prevented the acquisition and
45 Laurence Binyon to Cicely Binyon, 2 September 1910 [post mark], ALB, vol.
61.
46 Apart from the new acquisitions made between 1912 and 1913, the Admonitions
scroll, A Boy-Rishi riding on a Goat, Geese, Tethered Horses, and The Earthly
Paradise were previously shown in the 1910-2 exhibition.
47 See MMTSC, BMCA, 9 May 1914, vol. 57, 3232; The British Museum 1914b.
165
organisation of further exhibitions. Yet, almost a century after the

acquisitions, fine paintings from the Wegener and Morrison collections are
still on display at the British Museum, for example in the 2008 temporary
exhibition Fascination with Nature: Birds, Flowers and Insects in Chinese
48
Art, and continue to serve as useful examples to illustrate the historical
development of traditional Chinese painting to international visitors.
48 For instance, Eagle by Ying Bao and Quails and Millet attributed to Lu Ji from
the Wegener collection, as well as Wu Weis Lady Lao Yu with a Phoenix from the
Morrison collection were shown in the 2008 exhibition at the British Museum.
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AUTHORS BIOGRAPHIES
Arthur MacGregor
Arthur MacGregor, formerly a curator at the Ashmolean Museum, edits
the Journal of the History of Collections and is a general editor of The
Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo. His books include (as editor and
contributor) The Origins of Museums (1985), The Late Kings Goods
(1989), Sir Hans Sloane (1994), Enlightening the British (2003), Sir John
Evans (2008) and (as sole author) Curiosity and Enlightenment (2007) and
Animal Encounters (2012).
Allison Karmel Thomason is Professory of Ancient History at Southern
Illinois University Edwardsville, USA. She received her PhD from the
Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University
(1999). She has held a fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The
author of numerous articles about material culture in Mesopotamia, Dr.
Thomason published Luxury and Legitimation: Royal Collecting in Ancient
Mesopotamia (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate) in 2005. She is currently working
on a book manuscript about dress and identity in ancient Mesopotamia.
Patrick Michel
Patrick Michel, professor of the history of modern art at the university
Lille 3, Charles de Gaulle, is a member of the research centre IRHIS and a
renowned specialist in the history of the art market and of the collections
of the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
His publications include Mazarin, prince des collectionneurs (Paris:
RMN, 1999), Le Commerce du tableau Paris dans la seconde moiti du
XVIIIe sicle (Villeneuve dAscq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion,
2007) and Peinture et plaisir. Les gots picturaux des collectionneurs
parisiens au XVIIIe sicle (Rennes: PUR, 2001), for which he received the
Eugne Carrire prize from the Acadmie franaise in 2011. He has codirected, with Isabelle de Conihout, the book Mazarin, les Lettres et les arts
(Paris: Bibliothque Mazarine et d. Monelle Hayot, 2006). He is currently
preparing a study of the painter Nicolas-Bernard Lpici (1735-1784).
Patrick Michel is a member of the Scientific Council of the chteau de
Versailles and of the National Commission for Historical Monuments (4th
section).
202
Authors Biographies
Silvia Davoli
Silvia Davoli graduated at the University of Milan with a BA on the
Parisian Bankers as collectors of art during the nineteenth century;
subsequently she obtained an MA in the History of Art and a PhD at the
Sorbonne with a thesis on the History of Collecting with a special focus on
Henry Cernuschi (1821-1896) and his art collections. Currently, she is
collaborating with Jeremy Warren, Collections and Academic Director at
the Wallace Collection in London, on the constitution of a database of
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century art collectors and dealers (decorative
arts). Silvia Davoli is now the Paul Mellon Centre Research Curator at
Strawberry Hill House.
In 2010 she was awarded a short scholarship by the Francis Haskell
Memorial Fund/Burlington Magazine Foundation for her research project
entitled Both de Tauzias Italian Renaissance Collection (Wallace
Collection).
Corinna T. Gallori
Corinna Tania Gallori holds a Ph.D. in Art History (2008) from Milan
Universit degli Studi (Italy). From 2009 to September 2011 she was a
short-term post-doctoral fellow at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz/
Max-Planck-Institut under the directorship of Alessandro Nova and then a
researcher/collaborator on the project Imgenes en vuelo. Europa,
Mexiko und die Globalisierung der Bilder in der Frhen Neuzeit under the
directorship of Gerhard Wolf,.
Corinnas field of research focuses on Christian iconography and
includes studies of the Mass of St. Gregory in Italy (15th to 16th century)
and an analysis of the illustrations of the Dominican St. Peter Martyr and
of St. Albert the Great in the 15th century. For the KHI project she studied
Mexican featherworks inspired by Christian religious topics, in an attempt
to identify the iconographic sources of Mexican feather artworks (as
featured at the 2011 exhibition El vuelo de las imgenes in Mexico City)
and to assess their presence and success within private Italian art
collections during the High Renaissance and Baroque.
Corinna is the author of several publications including Una mostra
d'arte lignea e qualche novit sui rilievi Stroganoff. Rassegna di studi e di
notizie, 31-4, 2007/08 (2008): 121-52; Il trittico del Dizesanmuseum di
Vienna. Arte lombarda, 158-9 (2010): 24-38; and the forthcoming
monography Il monogramma dei Nomi di Ges e Maria: storia di
uniconografia tra scrittura e immagine.
203
Adriana Turpin
Adriana Turpin studied History at Oxford and then Art History at the
Courtauld Institute. She is the Academic Director of the MA course on the
History and Business of Art and Collecting, run by the Institut dtudes
Suprieures des Arts in Paris in partnership with the Wallace Collection
and the Sir John Soanes Museum. Before that she was a Deputy Director,
Sothebys and Senior Tutor at Sothebys Institute. She is a founder
member of the Working Group Collecting & Display at the Institute of
Historical Research and co-editor of their publications.
Adriana has written on a variety of topics related to collecting and to
the history of furniture. Among these was A Table for Queen Mary
Apollo, January 2000; Filling the Void: Beckfords Collecting of
Furniture and the Art Market in the late 18th century; an essay in the
exhibition catalogue, edited by D. Ostergard, An Eye for the Magnificent
in 2001 and The New World Collections of Duke Cosimo I de Medici
and their Role in the Creation of a Kunst- and Wunderkammer in the
Palazzo Vecchio in 2006.
Lisa Skogh
Lisa Skogh is based at Stockholm University, where she is conducting
research on Dowager Queen Hedwig Eleonoras art collections. She has
worked as a researcher at the Swedish Nationalmuseum at Stockholm,
where she led a project to publish their collection of the decorative arts.
Lisa has also collaborated as research assistant at the Department of
Medieval Art & The Cloisters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York and is affiliated with the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters
(CELL), University of London and with the Zentralinstitut fr
Kunstgeschichte, Munich (on a DAAD fellowship).
She has published extensively on the Swedish royal collections of the
seventeenth century and in particular on Hedwig Eleonora. Her doctoral
dissertation Material Worlds. Queen Hedwig Eleonora of Sweden (16361715) - Collector and Patron will be published (2013) by the Swedish
Royal Academy of Sciences (Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien).
Constance Bienaim
Constance Bienaim studied under the direction of Patrick Michel,
Professor of History of Modern Art at the University of Lille 3 (France),
Chinese collections in Paris during the eighteenth century. In particular
she studied collections assembled by scholars, interested in China and the
Chinese people. Her research has focused on Michel-Ferdinand and Louis
Joseph dAlbert dAilly, ducs de Chaulnes and on the minister Henri-
204
Authors Biographies
Lonard Bertin.
Since 2008 she has been responsible for the promotion of mdiation
scientifique et valorisation du patrimoine at the University of Lille 3.
Michelle Ying Ling Huang
Michelle Huang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Visual
Studies, Lingnan University. She studied Art History at The University of
St. Andrews with her doctoral thesis entitled The Reception of Chinese
Painting in Britain circa 1880-1920, with special reference to Laurence
Binyon (1869-1943), while her research interests include the transmission
and trans-cultural influences of East Asian art in the West, the collecting
and display of Chinese pictorial art in Europe and North America, the
historiography of Chinese painting, Chinese aesthetics and Western
modernism.
Michelles recent publications appeared in Beyond Boundaries: East
& West Cross-Cultural Encounters (Cambridge Scholars Publishing,
2011) and The Burlington Magazine 155 (July 2013). She has been a
Visiting Scholar at The University of the Arts London and The Victoria &
Albert.
INDEX
abiti da maschera 103

Agrippa (Marcus Agrippa), 92, 111
Aix-la-Chapelle 36, 145
Aldrovandi, Ulisse 74
Alma-Tadema, Lawrence 152
Amiot, Joseph-Marie 140, 142, 143
Amoreux, Joseph, vice-consul at
Smyrna xxxviii, 26
Anania, Gian Lorenzo 75
Anderson, William 151
Ansse de Villoison, Jean-Baptiste
19
antique shops xxi
Aristotle 50, 56, 57, 106, 107, 108,
109, 111, 112
The Poetics 106
art dealers xxi, 149, 163
Ashmolean Museum (Oxford) xxxii
Ashurbanipal 5, 12
Ashurnasirpal II 5, 7
Asiatic Society of Bengal xxvii
Asian art xli, 43, 49, 57, 58, 147,
164, 204
Asselin, Charles-Eloi (painter) 144
Athens xxxiv, xxxv, xxxviii, 19, 22,
23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 34,
35, 36, 38, 39
Erechtheion 24, 35
Kerameikos 34, 20
Parthenon xxxiv, xxxviii, 31,
32, 34, 39, 40
Temple de Minerve 24
Temple de la Victoire 24
Tower of the Winds xxxiv, 90,
91, 111
auction houses xxi
Aztec xxxviii 104
featherworks xxx, xxxi, xxxviii,
xxxix, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66,
67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74,

75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81,
89, 101, 102, 103, 105
sculpture 98, 99
Babylonia(n) 3
Balbeck 23
Barbier du Bocage, Jean-Denis 19
Barthlmy, Jean-Jacques (abb )
22, 28
Berenson, Bernard 152
Bertel, Giovanna Gaeta 84, 113
Bertin, Henri-Lonard xli, 137, 138,
139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144,
145, 146
Bevilacqua, Ambrogio 81
Bielke Nils 131
Binyon, Laurence xxv, xli, 148, 149,
151, 152, 155, 158, 159, 160,
161, 162, 163, 164
Bocchi, Francesco 89, 90, 91, 92,
95, 100, 101, 105, 107, 108, 112
Bolzoni, Lina 88
Bonde Carl 121, 126
Borghini, Raffaelo 100, 107, 108,
112
Borghini, Vincenzo 87, 88, 92
Borromeo, Carlo 67
Borromeo, Federico 67
Bougainville, Louis Antoine de xx
Breton de la Martinire, JeanBaptiste-Joseph 145
bronze(s) xxv, 2, 5, 12, 28, 42, 45,
51, 57, 89, 95, 96, 99, 101, 107,
140, 141, 149
Bronzino, Agnolo 72
Buontalenti, Bernardo 88, 89, 96,
100, 104, 105, 107, 109, 111
Calceolari (or Calzolari), Francesco
64
206
Camillo, Giulio 88, 92
Cappello, Bianca 72
Carlberg castle 119, 121, 122, 130
Cassas, Louis-Franois xxxviii, 19,
22, 23, 33, 36
Cattaneo, Carlo 46, 47. 48, 55, 56,
59
Cernuschi, Enrico vii, xxv, xxxviii,
41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48,
49, 50, 51, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57,
58, 59
Charles V Habsburg (king of Spain
and Holy Roman emperor) 62,
80
Chateaubriand, Franois Ren de 17
Chatou (estate of Bertin) 142
Chaulnes, Marie-Louis-Joseph
dAlbert d'Ailly (duc de) 143
Chen, Hongshou 158
China vii, xvi, xx, xxiii, xxiv, xxv,
xxvi, xl, xli, 41, 43, 45, 48, 49,
51, 55, 130, 137, 138, 139, 141,
142, 143, 146, 147, 148, 149,
151, 153, 159, 160, 163
Chinese painting(s) ix, xxv, xli, 140,
141, 143, 145, 147, 148, 149,
150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155,
158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164,
165
Chinese porcelain xxv, xxii xxiv,
xxvi, xxviii, xxxii, 45, 101, 130,
142, 160
Christina Vasa, queen of Sweden
129
Cixi, Empress Dowager ix, 156
Clrambault, chevalier de 35
Cochin, Charles Nicolas 139
Collier, V. W. F. 154
Colvin, Sidney xli, 148, 149, 150,
151, 151, 152, 161, 163
Constantinople xxv, xxxviii, 19, 23,
24, 26, 32, 34
Contarini, Gasparo 63
Cook, James, captain xx, xxxi, xxxii
Corner, Francesco 62, 65
Corts, Hernn xxx, 62
Index
Cousinry , sprit-Marie, consul at
Salonika, xxxviii, 26
Cretico, Giovanni Mattia 61
curiosities xix, xxi, xxx, xxxi, xxxii,
xxxiii, xli, 10, 13, 18, 28, 63, 75,
85, 95, 101, 105, 135, 137, 139,
145, 146
curiosities, cabinet(s) of xix, xxi,
xxx, xxxii, 10, 13, 95, 101, 135,
139
DEste, Alfonso II 74
Dacier, Bon-Joseph 38
dagger(s) 95, 105, 129
Dallington, Robert 73
de Acosta, Jos 76
De Greyss, Benedetto 95
De Pontes, Ana 72
De Cavalieri, Tommaso 71, 75
deep time xxxviii
Del Sarto, Andrea 100, 108
Delatour, Louis-Franois 143
Delille, Jacques 19
Della Rovere, Francesco Maria II 64
diplomatic gifts xix, xx, xxiii, xxvii,
48, 141
domaschino/damascene(d) 107, 113,
114, 115
Dresden xxii, 133
Drottningholm 119, 121, 123, 125,
130, 131
Dubois , Lo-Jean-Joseph 22, 31,
33, 35, 36, 27, 38
Dufourny, Lon 24, 36
Dutch East India Company (VOC)
xxi, xxiii
East India Company xxiii, xxv,
xxvii
Egypt xvi, xxxviii, 1, 5, 11, 12, 13,
23, 51
Egyptian antiquities xv, xxvi, 12,
13, 37, 50, 51
Ehrenstrahl, David Klcker viii,
121, 123, 125, 131
Elgin, Thomas-Bruce, lord xxxiv,
xxxv, 17, 18, 31, 34

Emeric-David,Toussaint-Bernard
31, 36, 37
Empire of Extravagance xxv, 137
Epic of Gilgamesh 3
Ergastines, plaque of (Louvre) 33,
40
ethnographic/ethnography xxi, xxii,
xxvi, xxix, xxxi, xxxii, 53, 133
Etruria (Etruscans) 2, 3, 5, 50, 86
exotic(-a) xv, xvi, xix, xx, xxi, xxii,
xxv, xxx, xxxii, xxxiii, xxxv,
xxxvii, xxxix, xl, xli, 3, 8, 9, 10,
12, 13, 14, 75, 85, 88, 89, 98,
99, 100, 102, 103, 107, 111,
112, 113, 121, 123, 126, 131,
136, 137, 139, 145, 146
Fabritius, Ludwig 134
Fan, Kuan 154
Fauvel, Louis Franois Sbastien
xvii, xxxviii, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26,
27, 28, 31, 32, 35, 37
Feinberg, Larry 87, 88
Fenollosa, Ernest 151
Flaubert, Gustave 46
Florence viii, xx, xxxiv, 53, 63, 73,
75, 77, 83, 85, 91, 92, 100, 102,
111, 112, 113
Casino di San Marco 71, 72, 88,
89, 95, 100, 102, 105
Palazzo Vecchio 13, 85, 86, 87,
91
Sala delle Carte
Geografiche/Maproom
13, 86, 90, 91
Scrittoio of Calliope 86, 95
Studiolo 83, 87, 90
Uffizi Gallery viii, xxxiv, xxxix,
83, 84, 85
Tribuna viii, xxxiv, xxxix,
83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89,
90, 91, 92, 93, 96, 98,
99, 100, 101, 102, 104,
105, 106, 108, 109, 110,
111, 112, 113
Foucherot, Jacques (engineer) 22,
33, 36
207
Fourmont, Michel (abbot) 19, 20

Freer, Charles Lang 151, 152, 158
French East India Company137,
138, 139
Friedrich III, duke of SchleswigHolstein-Gottorf xl, 133, 136
Fry, Roger 152
furniture xvi, 6, 89
Galilei, Galileo 93, 112
Galilei, Vincenzo 109
Gante, Pedro de 65
garden(s) 35, 142
botanical xix, xxvii
royal 5, 7, 8, 73, 122, 135
Gaspary, Joseph Dimitre de 22, 26,
27, 28, 31
Giovanni da Bologna 96
Gottorf (castle and collection) viii,
xl, 119, 120, 128, 132, 133, 136
Gregory XIII (Ugo Boncompagni)
68, 91
Gripsholm 119, 128, 130
Groe, Ernst 158
Guardaroba 85, 86, 87, 102, 103,
104
guglietta 96, 116, 117
Guo, Zhongshu 161
Gustav I Vasa, king of Sweden 128
Gustavus II Adolphus, king of
Sweden 127, 128
Gwynne-Evans, William 160
Hamilton, Sir William xxxiii, 17
Han, Kan 155
Handsteine 126
Hedwig Eleonora, queen of Sweden,
viii, xx, xl, 119, 120, 121, 123,
124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129,
130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135,
136
Heikamp, Detlef xxxix, 84, 90
Helman, Isidore-Stanislas 144, 145
Humboldt, Alexander von xx
ideology(-ies) 2, 3, 5, 14, 49
imports xvi, xix, xxvii, xxix, xxxvii,
2, 8, 137, 142
208
Indian/indianische xx, xxii, xxvii,
xxxv, xxxvii, 49, 100, 103, 104,
105, 116, 117, 134, 135, 164
inscription(s), royal 3, 7, 8, 9, 13
International Congress of
Orientalists 43, 51
Islamic world xxvii, xxviii
ivory xx, xxix, xxx, xxxiii, 6, 99,
105, 134
Iznik ware xxviii, xxxii
Japan vii, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii, xxvi,
xl, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 51, 53, 55,
127, 129, 130, 135, 147, 151,
152, 153, 154, 159, 160
Japanese xxvi, xxix, xxxii, xli, 44,
45, 51, 54, 64, 130, 147, 148,
151, 152, 159, 160, 161, 163,
164
Jesuit(s) xvi, xx, 71, 75, 76, 138,
140, 141, 146
jewellery 2
Kaempfer, Engelbert xxvi, 133, 134
kalkans 128, 129
Kauffer, Franois xxxviii, 26
Kenyon, Sir Frederick 158, 159
kerises 129, 133
Kerson 34
Khorsabad vii, 8, 10
Kircher, Athanasius 75
Kohitsu, Rynin 160
Krafft, David von 131
Kmmel, Otto 158
kunstkammer xxix, xxxix, xl, 85,
126, 132, 133, 135, 136
LIdea del Teatro 38
La Pellegrina 105, 109
lacquerware viii. Xvi, xxvi, xxxii,
xl, 127, 129, 130, 137
Lapland 125, 126, 136
Le Chevallier, Jean-Baptiste 19
Le Riche, Josse-Franois 144
Legrand, Jacques-Guillaume 22, 24,
33, 35
Leng, Mei 158
Leoni, Pompeo 64, 67
Liebhaberin 132
Index
Ligozzi, Jacopo 89, 100
Linneaus, Carl 13
lions 7, 10, 130
Loffredo, Diana 76
London xvi, xxii, xxvii, xxxiv, 57,
167
British Museum vii, ix, xxv,
xxxii, xxxiii, xli, 18, 37, 39,
147, 148, 149, 151, 152,
153, 154, 155, 158, 159,
160, 163, 164, 165, 167
Louis XV Bourbon, king of France
138
Louis XVI Bourbon, king of France
138
Louis XVIII Bourbon, king of
France 34
Magalotti, Lorenzo 75, 79, 81
Malta 33
Marbre Choiseul (Choiseul Marble)
vii, 28, 39, 40
marchands-merciers (goods
merchants) 137
Marseille xxxv, 28, 32, 33, 34
Martinez, Franois-Nicolas 144
mascherata 103
material culture xxvii, xxxii, 22
Medici family xxix, xxx, xxxiv,
xxxix, 13, 71, 73, 75, 80, 84, 85,
86, 89, 91, 92, 93, 101, 102,
103, 105, 109, 111, 112
Antonio 72, 89
Clement VII (Giulio de Medici)
90
Cosimo I, grand duke of
Tuscany 71, 83, 86, 87, 103
Ferdinando I, grand duke of
Tuscany 71, 72, 73, 74,
80, 83, 84, 104, 109
Francesco I, grand duke of
Tuscany xxxix, 71, 72, 83,
84, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91,
92, 95, 99, 100, 102, 103,
105, 111
Lorenzo il Magnifico 101

Mediterranean (Sea) vii, xxviii,
xxix, 3, 9, 10
Mei, Girolamo 109, 110
mensole 95, 113-5
Mesopotamia(ns) xxxviii, 1, 2, 3, 4,
5, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15
Miao, Jiahui ix, 156
Michelangelo 71, 77, 105
Mirollo, James 106
missionary activity xvi, xx, xxi,
xxxviii, 63, 138, 140, 145, 146
Moctezuma 62
Molinos, Jacques 24
Mollet Andr 122
monkeys 7
Monti, Cesare 67
More, Thomas 78
Morrison, Arthur xli, 147, 148, 152,
158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163,
164, 165
Mt. Amanus 7, 9
Mughal India xxvii, xxviii
Muqi ix, 161
Namban 127
natural historians xxii
naturalia xi, 73, 85, 88, 99, 102,
105
Nelson, Horatio, lord 33
Neo-Assyria(n) Empire 1, 5
Nimrud vii, 5, 6, 8, 14
Nointel, Charles-Franois Olier,
marquis de xxxvii, 19, 20, 38,
40
Obelisk 12
Occidentalism xxxvii, 1, 4
Odessa 34
Okakura, Kakuzo 159
Olearius Adam xl, 128, 132, 133,
134, 136
Omont, Henri 19
Ottoman xxi, xxviii, xxxvii, 31, 128,
129, 131
Pacific xxxi
palace(s) vii, viii, xvi, xxiv, xxv, 1,
2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 86, 119,
120, 121, 122, 123, 127, 131,
209
135, 155
Paleotti, Gabriele 74
Palmyra xxxv, 23, 36
Panzi, Giuseppe 144
Paris vii, xvi, xx, xxxv, 17, 18, 28,
33, 35, 41, 43, 44, 45, 57, 58,
140, 142, 152
Htel Marbeuf 35
Muse du Louvre vii, 34, 37, 39,
40, 51
Paul III (Alessandro Farnese) 65
Paul IV (Giovanni Pietro Carafa) 66
philosophy of history 47, 48
Phoenicia(n) 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13,
15
Piersanti, Filippo 80
Pietro Martire dAnghiera 62, 65
Pigafetta, Antonio 61
Pius IV (Giovanni Angelo Medici)
66
Pius V (Michele Ghislieri) 67
Pliny the Elder 87
Precht, Burchardt 127
pretiosa xl, 120, 122, 131, 135, 136
Qianlong 144
Quatremre de Quincy, Antoine
Chrysostome 38
Raphael 77, 100, 108
Reenstierna Abraham Momma viii,
125, 126
relief(s) vii, xxxvii, 5, 6, 9, 10, 22,
24, 26, 27, 34, 35
Renaissance xxvii, xxix, xxxviii, 10,
14, 43, 48, 50, 57, 58, 81, 109
Ricketts, Charles 152
Rome xx, 23, 63, 67, 69, 71, 72, 73,
80, 95, 111
Rothenstein, William 151
Royal Armoury, Stockholm 128,
129, 133
Salonika xxxviii, 26
Santorini 28, 37
Sargon II, king of Assyria 8, 10
Sargon of Akkad 3, 5
Schefferus, Johannes 125
Second Opium War xxi, xxv
210
Sennacherib, king of Assyria 7, 10,
13
Settala, Manfredo 72, 80
Shen, Quan 162
silver mountain viii, 96, 99, 107,
126
Sixtus V (Felice Peretti) 68, 76, 78
Smyrna xxxviii, 26, 33
soldiers xxi, xxxviii
South Africa xxii, 160
South America xxii, xxx, xxxi, 443
Stein, Marc Aurel xli, 148, 164
Stockholm viii, 119, 121, 122, 128
Strmsholm 119
Strozzi, Roberto 71
Syria xxxvii, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13,
15
Tasso, Torquato 93
techne 57, 59
The Spectator xxiv
Thiry, Luc-Vincent 140, 143
tombs 2, 5
Tondu, Achille (astronomer) 19
Tradescant family xxxi
trees 7, 9, 154
Trkenbeute xxi
Uguccioni, Giovanni Battista 72
Ulriksdal 119, 130, 131, 135
Vasari, Giorgio 83, 86, 87, 90, 105,
109
Index
Vatican 91
Belvedere courtyard 91, 95
Vespucci, Amerigo 61
Vico, Giovanni Battista xxii, 47, 48,
49, 55, 57, 59
Victoria & Albert Museum 156
Vienna viii, xxii, xxviii, 62
Villa Il Riposo 107
Vitruvius xxxiv, 91, 111
von Bode Wilhelm 149
von Seckendorff, Gtz 149
Voretzsch, Ernst Arthur 149, 152
voyages of exploration xx, xxxi
Waley, Arthur 159
Wang, Hui 163
Wegener, Georg ix, 148
Wegener, Olga-Julia viii, xli, 147,
148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153,
154, 155, 156, 158, 161, 163,
165
Wen, Zhengming 162
William V, duke of Bavaria 96
wood, cedar 3, 4
Wu, Wei ix, 162
wunderkammern xxxvii, 10, 85
Ximnez, Francisco 75
Xu, Mei 158
Xu, Tingkun 158
Zhao, Chang ix, 155
Zhao, Lingrang 161
Zhao, Mengfu 155

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