Introduction
“Rudolf’s collection…was a theatre of the world”Samuel Quiccheberg, 1565.
Described by Karel van Mander as “the greatest admirer of the art of painting in the world”, art patron, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II of Habsburg (1552-16612), modified his home at Prague castle to house the vast collections of his Kunstkammer. From 1590, artists and artisans built and decorated rooms for the collections on the first and second floors above the stables in the castle's courtyard.
The Kunst- (art) and Wunderkammer (marvels) of Emperor Rudolf II housed a plethora of art and objects from naturalia (products of nature), arteficialia (products of man), to scientifica (man’s domination of nature). Legend had long depicted Rudolf as a mad ruler, who found solitude in his vast collections but more recent scholarship has found order in the chaos. Understanding the collection as an expression of the Emperor’s imperial magnificence, his virtus, or his worth, the Kunstkammer appears as a carefully designed universe over which the Emperor was the divine ruler.
What did the objects in the Kunstkammer collection represent?
How can we experience the Kunstkammer in the way that the Emperor did?
Art, Marvel and Curiosity provides an insight into this universe. Displaying objects, whose origins stem for across the globe, alongside complex allegorical messages found in the mannerist paintings of the court artists. This exhibition brings together celebrated works from the Kunstkammer. Each object a microcosm of the Emperor’s reign. From taming far away cultures, to his role as protector of the art of painting, Art Marvel and Curiosity finds the patron behind the works of the Kunstkammer.