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Room 6: The Cabinet
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Room 6 is called The Cabinet. In the 17th century this word had dual meaning. On the one hand, a cabinet was a piece of furniture in which precious objects were kept – and here you’ll see many cabinets of various sizes. But on the other hand, a cabinet was also a small, secluded room – a sort of mini museum.
The objects in our cabinet are typical of those found in princely collections. They include paintings, sculptures, small carvings, enamels and precious metalwork. Many refer to the natural world, or incorporate rare materials such as ivory, amber and nautilus shell. Some are from distant parts of the globe. All were meant to be handled, examined and discussed. This bringing together of science and art, knowledge and investigation, was typical of 17th-century collecting.
In front of the window is an activity table, where visitors – especially families – can explore these concepts. To its right is a catalogue by a Danish collector called Ole Worm. His cabinet, crammed with shells, fossils, stuffed animals and strange antiquities, was depicted in an engraving that’s one of the defining images of 17th- century cabinets. Look out for it as you explore the room.
Look out, too, for the labels – they include quotations from Samuel Quiccheberg, a scholar who devised the first set of rules for classifying and arranging collections.
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Room 6: The Cabinet
Nautilus shell
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My name is Eric Jorink. I’m Professor of the History of Science at Leiden University.
This is an amazing piece of work where art meets science, where nature meets the skill of the artisan. It’s a delicate piece made in the 1620s in Amsterdam, which was at that time the global hub of knowledge and artistic skill, and people really liked objects like these where nature, nature’s greatness, the skill of God, met the skill of the artisan.
Now what we see is actually the nautilus shell in its original form, but polished by the artisan and decorated with very delicate engraving; and mounted in, what is it, silver I think or enamel. And then very delicate drawings or very delicate engravings of insects are added, insects like mayfly or ordinary houseflies, and we see the same insects reproduced at the pedestal of the nautilus cup. Insects were worthy of study, like shells, it was mainly their structure, their very intricate structure, that people marvelled at.
Cabinets of curiosities is a phenomenon that started in the 16th century and people first started to collect valuable objects, which were meant to illustrate the works of the ancients. So you could contemplate God by reading the Bible or by collecting the objects of his creation, and objects like this decorated nautilus shell were one of the favourites in these cabinets.
Amsterdam in the 17th century was a hub of global trade and also the place where objects like these – nautilus shells from the Indian seas – were brought in and sold. In my view this is a very interesting piece because it kind of blurs our present-day academic distinctions between art and science and between science and religion. This object forces us to look back at our early modern period as a period of wonder. And this is a very nice example of it.
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Room 6: The Cabinet
Thumb ring
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I’m Edmund de Waal. I’m a potter.
This is glorious, this is a Mughal; a 17th-century thumb ring.
It’s absurdly pure, but it’s jadeite, an ovaled shape and then with the round space for your thumb. And then, set around the round part of the ring are emeralds and rubies, each one joins the next one with a tiny, tiny thread of gold.
This is an imperial ring; this is an emperor’s ring. I’m going to put it on – I can’t possibly get it on my thumb my thumb is too big – that’s too dangerous, I’m going to put it on a finger. OK, this is my only time in my life I’m ever going to feel imperial. It’s extraordinary – it’s so heavy. It pulls your hand down.
Imagine your hands resting in your lap and you feel like any movement you’d make would be a signal to your court to do something. The inside of it is this almost pure ellipse of jade that sort of actually just wraps itself around your thumb, so it’s made to fit completely snugly on your hand. I’m actually running my hands over those emeralds and rubies. They are so finely positioned and polished there’s no abrasion there at all. Do you know what – that feels very good.
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Room 6: The Cabinet
The Temptation in the Garden of Eden
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My name’s Joanna Woodall. I’m a Professor of Art History at the Courtauld Institute. I'm looking at a painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder called 'The Garden of Eden'. And this is a really significant moment in the history of the universe, because it is the moment at which the perfect nature that God had created, is shattered by the eating of the apple from the tree of knowledge, when human beings distanced themselves from God. And when we know that I think that we can see that it’s a world that’s beginning to be disturbed. We can see the horses stirring, we can see dogs barking.
At the same time though there’s a lot of peacefulness in this scene. There are deer, lying down one with another. There are little guinea pigs on the right hand side, right next to a couple of leopards and the leopards haven’t eaten them. So the residue, the kind of echo of the perfect world where everything lives in harmony, is still visible in this picture.
This picture was one of many, many made by the workshop of Jan Brueghel the Elder. They were owned, I think, by members of the mercantile elite, the urban elite, possibly even a courtier who was knowledgeable about not only theology but about the latest developments in natural history. The animals include animals from all over the world. Here we can see in the background a couple of camels, the backs of elephants – and I’ve mentioned the leopards – the toucan, and really lots of exotic birds.
Another thing that relates directly to contemporary natural history is the way in which the animals are arranged. The quadrupeds are on the right-hand side, the watery birds, are in the lower left-hand side, and the birds of the air are in the upper left-hand side. But things are beginning to get mixed up. And they are all coming together at this very, very crucial moment of unrest in the Garden of Eden. But also it was a moment of great unrest in Europe, a moment where knowledge itself was equally turning in the way that knowledge had kind of turned in the Garden of Eden. So it is a very, in a way, quietly dramatic picture.
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Room 6: The Cabinet
Lizard cast
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Hello, I’m Elizabeth Hamilton and I’m a volunteer guide at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and here we have a bearded dragon lizard.
This gallery is one of our smaller galleries. Called The Cabinet it is designed to reflect the 17th-century enthusiasm for collecting. The displays show precious objects, which would be shown in ‘cabinets’, meaning small rooms or carefully designed pieces of furniture. Such objects might include works of virtuoso artistry and craftsmanship, strange natural phenomena and rarities from around the world.
This bronze cast of a bearded dragon lizard stands proud on a table of activities designed to introduce us to the interest in art, science and collecting. You’re welcome to touch it. The lizard is a ‘life cast’, meaning that it was not modelled, but cast from an actual lizard. Life casts were popular in 17th-century collections as they represented a fusion of nature and art. Andrew Lacey, the sculptor who made this cast, has captured all the details of the original creature. It has spiny scales arranged in rows and clusters. The broad smoother triangular head has deep eye sockets on either side towards the mouth and nose. The term ‘beard’ refers to the sharp scales around the chin and to the underside of the throat. The four legs are bent in a crawling position. The scales here are rather smoother. Each foot has five irregular toes like fine fingers. Notice that the feet are not identical and the front feet are stubbier. The tail narrows to a blunt end.
Bearded dragon lizards come from Australia. Our lizard had died some time before the cast was made. We could not use a European lizard because it is now illegal to collect them.
The whole surface of the activity table is cast in bronze from a linocut illustration by Alexis Snell. The lizard is set on a leafy bed with flowers and insects. To its right is a game, similar to Snakes and Ladders but showing the ups and downs of a 17th- century collector. Beyond that there is an ocean with ships, and an octopus and shells. Rising out of the ocean is a globe.
To the left of the lizard is a small case with a clockwork tortoise and a small gilded sailing ship on wheels. Beyond that there is another bronze surface. It has an illustration of the Garden of Eden inspired by a painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder dated around 1600. This hangs on a wall nearby. Animals and birds of the world, as known then, feature in a lush leafy jungle – deer, monkeys, leopards and parrots and toucans.
Enjoy your encounter with the bearded dragon lizard and we hope you will explore the activity with all the enthusiasm of the discoverers of the 17th century.