BGuthrie Photos: NY -- NYC -- Metropolitan Museum of Art -- Exhibit: Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe

NY -- NYC -- Metropolitan Museum of Art -- Exhibit: Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe:

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Description of Pictures: Making Marvels: Science and Splendor at the Courts of Europe
November 25, 2019–March 1, 2020
Between 1550 and 1750, nearly every royal family in Europe assembled vast collections of valuable and entertaining objects. Such lavish public spending and display of precious metals was considered an expression of power. Many princes also believed that the possession of artistic and technological innovations conveyed status, and these objects were often prominently showcased in elaborate court entertainments, which were characteristic of the period.
Making Marvels explores the complex ways in which the wondrous items collected by early modern European princes, and the contexts in which they were displayed, expressed these rulers' ability to govern. Approximately 170 objects—including clocks, automata, furniture, musical instruments, jewelry, paintings, sculptures, print media, and more—from both The Met collection and over fifty lenders worldwide are featured. Visitors will discover marvelous innovations that engaged and delighted the senses of the past, much like twenty-first-century technology holds our attention today—through suspense, surprise, and dramatic transformations.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. METMAR_191220_001.JPG: Making Marvels Science & Splendor at the Courts of Europe
2. METMAR_191220_004.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser Commissioned by Otto Henry, Count Palatine and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, and later sold to Emperor Ferdinand I, this planetary clock is unsurpassed in its complex mechanisms and was celebrated as a technical marvel in its time. Designed by mathematician Philipp Imser, its delicately engraved faces provide an overview of the entire cosmos at a glance; the clock represents the apparent motion of the planets in real time, visualizing even the subtle nonuniformity of that motion as seen from Earth. Video Along with accurate astronomical displays, this piece features five mechanical figures (automata) powered by the clockwork. The videos in this gallery show the female figure that circles the tower once an hour, her outstretched arm serving as the minute hand. Over the course of the hour, she passes four doors that reveal in turn the three ages of man (child, adult, elder) and a skeleton -- a reminder that time is up. The videos also feature the sound of the movement and the chimes.
3. METMAR_191220_007.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
4. METMAR_191220_008.JPG: "Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced." -- Francis Bacon, 1620 Knowledge is power. So goes the famous adage, and such were the priorities of European rulers during the Renaissance, Baroque, and early Enlightenment periods -- a transformative epoch known as the early modern era. Between 1550 and 1750, nearly every European prince and sovereign amassed a vast and glittering collection intended to communicate power. The most exquisite decorative arts in these collections were as valued for their artistic and technological advancement as they were for their opulence. To bolster their reputations, rulers across Europe pursued science and splendor with equal vigor, forging a transcontinental culture of magnificence. The works on view here played a key role in complex strategies of courtly self-representation. Scientific and artisanal knowledge was equated with the practical wisdom, self-mastery, and moral virtue required of a successful leader. Rulers proclaimed their divine right to govern by assembling encyclopedic collections that demonstrated an understanding of nature's secrets and by embracing practices meant to showcase their erudition and skill. These powerful patrons demanded ever more sophisticated production processes, instruments, and display pieces for their collections from the artisans in their employ. This dynamic environment cultivated major inventions in the arts and sciences, the ripples of which are still felt today in our tablets, smartphones, and automobiles. The marvels in this exhibition are much more than their lustrous surfaces suggest. They also embody the enduring link between technological innovation and social prestige.
5. METMAR_191220_013.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
6. METMAR_191220_014.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
7. METMAR_191220_016.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
8. METMAR_191220_017.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
9. METMAR_191220_019.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
10. METMAR_191220_021.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
11. METMAR_191220_022.JPG: Planetary Clock (The Imser Clock) 1554–1561 Philipp Imser
12. METMAR_191220_029.JPG: Setting the Standard: Princely Magnificence in Precious Metal Gold and silver have been the basis of international currency since ancient times. As gold became rarer, silver's importance grew: from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, no precious metal more directly expressed princely power. Dug from deposits in Hungary, Saxony, the Alps, and, after the 1540s, the Spanish colonies in Mexico and Peru, silver dominated the European economy. Rulers such as the Electors of Saxony in Dresden employed court engineers and scientists to improve mining techniques and increase their yield. Brilliantly designed display pieces fashioned from silver signaled territorial wealth and power, and princes showed them off in their banquet halls and treasuries. Some princes dressed up as miners during courtly entertainments, carrying tools of the trade transformed by the inclusion of jewels. Suites of silver furniture became particularly fashionable, but few survived for long. The material value of silver as currency put these objects in constant danger of being melted down and repurposed as coin during difficult times. Rare even in their time, the monumental silver pieces in this gallery are precious survivors of the expensive demands of the period.
13. METMAR_191220_035.JPG: Fountain with the coats-of-arms of Ernest Augustus, bishop of Osnabrück and duke of York surmounted by a unicorn ca. 1716–25 Probably by Johann Wilhelm Voigt I These fountains and basins belong to a silver service made between 1705 and 1725 for two members of the royal Hanover family of Germany, who controlled large parts of the silver-rich Harz Mountains: George Louis, Prince Elector of Hanover (future King George I of Great Britain), and Ernest Augustus, Prince Bishop of Osnabrück (later Duke of York and Albany). The monumental vessels functioned as display items and held cold water for rinsing glasses or chilling beverages at celebrations. The ungilded silver and sober design would * have projected the values of thrift, stability, and seriousness appropriate to a Protestant monarch, but the combined weight of the set equaled that of almost 1,900 thalers -- a stunning amount during a time when a university professor earned 400 thalers a year and a court clockmaker only 200.
14. METMAR_191220_038.JPG: Fountain with the coats-of-arms of Ernest Augustus, bishop of Osnabrück and duke of York surmounted by a lion ca. 1720 Lewin Dedecke These fountains and basins belong to a silver service made between 1705 and 1725 for two members of the royal Hanover family of Germany, who controlled large parts of the silver-rich Harz Mountains: George Louis, Prince Elector of Hanover (future King George I of Great Britain), and Ernest Augustus, Prince Bishop of Osnabrück (later Duke of York and Albany). The monumental vessels functioned as display items and held cold water for rinsing glasses or chilling beverages at celebrations. The ungilded silver and sober design would * have projected the values of thrift, stability, and seriousness appropriate to a Protestant monarch, but the combined weight of the set equaled that of almost 1,900 thalers -- a stunning amount during a time when a university professor earned 400 thalers a year and a court clockmaker only 200.
15. METMAR_191220_039.JPG: Two sconces ca. 1655 German, probably Augsburg Prince Paul Esterházy I, the first owner of this splendid Baroque ensemble, was vice-regent of Hungary and held high offices at the imperial court in Vienna. He likely acquired the imposing table, one of Europe's earliest pieces of silver furniture, from Emperor Leopold I. Depicted at its center is the mythological Judgement of Paris, in which the young prince decides a contest between three goddesses. The sconces are adorned with portraits of Paul Esterházy and his wife, Ursula, in the style of Roman emperors. Both the sconces and gueridons are made of a base metal covered with a thin layer of silver. The fact they are not solid silver probably saved them from the melting pot.
16. METMAR_191220_044.JPG: Judgement of Paris Table 1659 David Schwestermüller I Prince Paul Esterházy I, the first owner of this splendid Baroque ensemble, was vice-regent of Hungary and held high offices at the imperial court in Vienna. He likely acquired the imposing table, one of Europe's earliest pieces of silver furniture, from Emperor Leopold I. Depicted at its center is the mythological Judgement of Paris, in which the young prince decides a contest between three goddesses. The sconces are adorned with portraits of Paul Esterházy and his wife, Ursula, in the style of Roman emperors. Both the sconces and gueridons are made of a base metal covered with a thin layer of silver. The fact they are not solid silver probably saved them from the melting pot.
17. METMAR_191220_046.JPG: Judgement of Paris Table 1659 David Schwestermüller I
18. METMAR_191220_050.JPG: Kettle Drums 1779 Franz Peter Bunsen Hanoverian (German) Silver kettle drums were the ultimate ceremonial instrument. King George III presented this set to his royal guard. The stylish exteriors, including reliefs of his coat of arms, reflect the latest advancements hidden within, which allow the musician to vary the intensity of the instrument's sound. Together the drums weigh about 53 pounds, representing a small fortune in silver. Draped in embroidered crimson banners and mounted on either side of a saddle at the head of a royal parade, the instruments conveyed an impression of power and prosperity, demonstrating the richness of the king's lands.
19. METMAR_191220_054.JPG: Vanitas Still Life 1603 Jacques de Gheyn II Netherlandish Based on the Old Testament verse "vanity of vanities, all is vanity," vanitas paintings feature emblems of death and were common in many Renaissance and Baroque collections. These artworks balanced the treasures on display by reminding visitors not to rely on transient earthly powers, such as riches, political authority, and military might, because human life is brief regardless of wealth or social station. The present painting, cited as the earliest Netherlandish example of the type, includes several now-familiar emblems of death and impermanence, including a bubble, a skull, and a tulip. Tulip bulbs were highly prized until the market crashed in 1637.
20. METMAR_191220_060.JPG: Handstein ca. 1740 Hungarian, Urvology (formerly Herrengrund) Mining was a lucrative industry for the early modern rulers of central Europe. Princes held hereditary rights (Bergregal) to mine on their lands, which they granted to others in exchange for taxes. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, Handsteine (hand stones) composed of extraordinary pieces of ore were given to rulers by the miners working their territory as evidence of the riches bestowed by God. This example cradles miniature silver-mine shafts and ore-processing workshops. The engraved glass elements, which may have held condiments or flowers, suggest that it demonstrated the success of Hungarian mining enterprises to banquet guests.
21. METMAR_191220_064.JPG: Handstein ca. 1740 Hungarian, Urvology (formerly Herrengrund) Mining was a lucrative industry for the early modern rulers of central Europe. Princes held hereditary rights (Bergregal) to mine on their lands, which they granted to others in exchange for taxes. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, Handsteine (hand stones) composed of extraordinary pieces of ore were given to rulers by the miners working their territory as evidence of the riches bestowed by God. This example cradles miniature silver-mine shafts and ore-processing workshops. The engraved glass elements, which may have held condiments or flowers, suggest that it demonstrated the success of Hungarian mining enterprises to banquet guests.
22. METMAR_191220_067.JPG: Incense Burner in the Form of a Castle (Räucherburg) ca. 1590 Abraham Jamnitzer Fashioned by the son of master goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer, this incense burner was kept in the grand ducal Kunstkammer of Baden-Baden. It was likely taken out to decorate banquet tables, where the heady smoke emanating from the base would have permeated the room. The fragrance had both a celebratory and a medicinal function; incense was considered a means to cleanse the air of harmful vapors.
23. METMAR_191220_072.JPG: Ewer in the form of an ostrich and basin ca. 1689–92 Ewer by Marx Weinold German These vessels show how Renaissance knowledge of exotic animals blended observed behaviors with symbolic associations. The horseshoe grasped in the beak of the ewer by Hans Clauss I refers to the birds' supposed ability to digest iron, which was viewed as a metaphor for strength. Marx Weinhold and Johann Mittnacht I engaged another heavily symbolized aspect of ostrich behavior: the sunburst pattern on the basin refers to the belief that the animals' eggs were incubated not by their body heat, but by the sun, an idea Renaissance scholars associated with the Immaculate Conception.
24. METMAR_191220_075.JPG: The Kunstkammer: A Haven of Splendor and Study Many marvels collected in this era were valued for the insight they provided into the natural world. Sensory engagement became an accepted method of understanding nature, and it was joined with theoretical knowledge studied from printed texts to form a "new science." The opportunity to examine natural materials, particularly those brought to Europe from foreign lands, promised new discoveries. Novel specimens inspired goldsmiths, who enshrined them in mounts of precious metal ingeniously designed to complement their beauty and express what was known of their attributes and origins. The techniques craftspeople used to transform prized objects such as shells or coconuts into works of art required a deep familiarity with natural materials and their veiled properties that was esteemed by scholars and princes alike. Each of the remarkable pieces in this gallery proved the maker's -- and by extension the owner's -- understanding of nature and resulting ability to harness its power. Rulers kept these objects in a space known in the German-speaking provinces as the Kunstkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, which functioned simultaneously as a place of amusement, a retreat for scientific investigation, and a political showcase of magnificence. Some of the artworks in these collections, which were carefully calculated to demonstrate a family's divine right to rule, eventually became dynastic heirlooms of great importance.
25. METMAR_191220_078.JPG: Welcome Cup in the Form of a Fox Holding a Goose 1565-1570 Paulus Tullner These examples of the goldsmith's art can have their heads removed so their bodies can be used as drinking cups. The complex techniques required to produce them likely served as a topic of educated conversation in the Kunstkammer. The vessel shaped like a fox holding a goose echoes imagery in the coat of arms of its patron, Heinrich von Bobenhausen, head of the influential Teutonic Order of Knighthood. A guest invited to partake in a ritual of welcoming would drink from a symbol of his host. Kienle's gilding conveys the energy of his sculptural stallion, highlighting the differences between its musculature and that of its human rider.
26. METMAR_191220_080.JPG: Drinking Cup in the Form of a Horse and Rider 1630 Hans Ludwig Kienle These examples of the goldsmith's art can have their heads removed so their bodies can be used as drinking cups. The complex techniques required to produce them likely served as a topic of educated conversation in the Kunstkammer. The vessel shaped like a fox holding a goose echoes imagery in the coat of arms of its patron, Heinrich von Bobenhausen, head of the influential Teutonic Order of Knighthood. A guest invited to partake in a ritual of welcoming would drink from a symbol of his host. Kienle's gilding conveys the energy of his sculptural stallion, highlighting the differences between its musculature and that of its human rider. Video Kienle made his horse and rider through the lost-wax casting process demonstrated here. A solid carved-wax model is translated into a plaster mold. The interior of the mold is coated with a thin layer of wax to create a hollow duplicate of the original. The hollow wax model is then filled with plaster and encased in clay. The wax is melted out of the mold and silver is cast inside, creating an exact replica of the hollow model in precious metal.
27. METMAR_191220_083.JPG: Globe Cup 1604 Hans Jakob I. Bair The globe's engraving is based on a world map published in 1590 that reflected the most up-to-date cartographic knowledge in Europe. As imperial ambition grew, maps became a way for rulers to display their knowledge of territories overseas. A Greek inscription on the globe equates drinking from the cup with gaining knowledge of the world: "In two halves we are cut from the globe, one of us contains the inhabitants of the South, the other the folks of the North... If you drink twice in both halves you will see everything." The infant atop the globe could be interpreted as Christ, borne on the shoulders of Saint Christopher.
28. METMAR_191220_086.JPG: Nautilus Cup with Female Figure 1588 Bartel Jamnitzer In 1588, Landgrave William IV of Hesse-Kassel purchased this pair of nautilus cups made by the nephew of famed goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer. The shells themselves may have been decorated in China for export or in a European workshop in imitation of Chinese style; European rulers valued the skill of foreign craftsmen. The mounts play on the origin of the nautilus shell in the sea: A Triton and a Nereid serve as supporting figures and the cups are crowned by Neptune riding a snail. Intact pairs of vessels like these rarely survive. Nautilus Cup with Male Figure 1588 Bartel Jamnitzer In 1588, Landgrave William IV of Hesse-Kassel purchased this pair of nautilus cups made by the nephew of famed goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer. The shells themselves may have been decorated in China for export or in a European workshop in imitation of Chinese style; European rulers valued the skill of foreign craftsmen. The mounts play on the origin of the nautilus shell in the sea: A Triton and a Nereid serve as supporting figures and the cups are crowned by Neptune riding a snail. Intact pairs of vessels like these rarely survive.
29. METMAR_191220_088.JPG: Heart-shaped flask 16th C, mounts ca. 1580 Gujarat (?), with Iberian mounts A 1596 inventory of Archduke Ferdinand II's Kunstkammer lists this tortoiseshell flask as "an Indian flask . . . of cast glass or ceramic." The writer's uncertainty about its material underscores the blurring of art and nature so prized in Kunstkammer objects. It also speaks to tortoiseshell's rarity in Europe. Indian-made tortoiseshell pieces were brought back to Europe to be displayed as marvelous "exotica" as early as 1540.
30. METMAR_191220_091.JPG: Turban Snail Cup and Cover cup ca. 1600, stand before 1753 Stand by Johann Joachim Busch The abundance of ornament worked into the silver mounts of this cup and cover reflects the Mannerist style popular around 1600. The artist has used the shell's spiral to suggest the coiled body of a basilisk, a reptilian monster believed to kill merely by looking at or breathing on its prey. In 1752, Duke Christian Ludwig II of Mecklenburg commissioned court sculptor Johann Joachim Busch to elevate the heirloom on a fashionable stand that reflects the rococo taste for curving lines.
31. METMAR_191220_094.JPG: Casket 1593-1602 Hans Straub Hans Straub employed patterns perfected by his father-in-law, master goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer, to fashion this box. Jamnitzer developed a press for stamping ornamental strips that was used to produce the prefabricated band at the bottom edge of the box and the frieze along the top edge. The frieze circling the lid appears on Jamnitzer's own work. The sides feature personifications of the seven planetary gods, a popular motif for Kunstkammer objects. The additional presence of Juno, goddess of birth and marriage, suggests the casket belonged to a woman, who donated it to the Hohenzollern Kunstkammer in Berlin City Palace.
32. METMAR_191220_097.JPG: Casket 1593-1602 Hans Straub Hans Straub employed patterns perfected by his father-in-law, master goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer, to fashion this box. Jamnitzer developed a press for stamping ornamental strips that was used to produce the prefabricated band at the bottom edge of the box and the frieze along the top edge. The frieze circling the lid appears on Jamnitzer's own work. The sides feature personifications of the seven planetary gods, a popular motif for Kunstkammer objects. The additional presence of Juno, goddess of birth and marriage, suggests the casket belonged to a woman, who donated it to the Hohenzollern Kunstkammer in Berlin City Palace.
33. METMAR_191220_101.JPG: Ewer and Basin with Life Casts ca. 1550 Peter Kuster In the Kunstkammer, wonders of art and of nature competed for the prince's attention. Perfect imitation of plants and animals was a marvelous feat, and no technique came closer than life casting. Creatures cast from molds taken of live models were so lifelike they could replace the real thing, allowing princes to examine elusive natural marvels. Wenzel Jamnitzer perfected the technique, but the procedure may have been stolen by Peter Kuster to produce objects like this splendid ewer and basin set (never before exhibited in the United States). When this piece entered the Dubrovnik Cathedral Treasury in 1779, it was adapted into a reliquary.
34. METMAR_191220_103.JPG: Ewer and Basin with Life Casts ca. 1550 Peter Kuster In the Kunstkammer, wonders of art and of nature competed for the prince's attention. Perfect imitation of plants and animals was a marvelous feat, and no technique came closer than life casting. Creatures cast from molds taken of live models were so lifelike they could replace the real thing, allowing princes to examine elusive natural marvels. Wenzel Jamnitzer perfected the technique, but the procedure may have been stolen by Peter Kuster to produce objects like this splendid ewer and basin set (never before exhibited in the United States). When this piece entered the Dubrovnik Cathedral Treasury in 1779, it was adapted into a reliquary.
35. METMAR_191220_106.JPG: Ewer and Basin with Life Casts ca. 1550 Peter Kuster In the Kunstkammer, wonders of art and of nature competed for the prince's attention. Perfect imitation of plants and animals was a marvelous feat, and no technique came closer than life casting. Creatures cast from molds taken of live models were so lifelike they could replace the real thing, allowing princes to examine elusive natural marvels. Wenzel Jamnitzer perfected the technique, but the procedure may have been stolen by Peter Kuster to produce objects like this splendid ewer and basin set (never before exhibited in the United States). When this piece entered the Dubrovnik Cathedral Treasury in 1779, it was adapted into a reliquary.
36. METMAR_191220_107.JPG: "Four Seasons" enamel liqueur service ca. 1710 Elias Adam The enamel decoration on this service is based on engravings after a series of monumental Four Seasons paintings commissioned by King Louis XIV for the Château Saint-Cloud's Galerie d'Apollon. The design demonstrates the goldsmith's ability to convert already valuable metal into a treasured work of art, and the miniaturization of the paintings in the fragile enamel medium is a virtuosic feat. The service was probably not used for drinking, but rather admired through close examination and compared to memories of the paintings.
37. METMAR_191220_110.JPG: "Four Seasons" enamel liqueur service ca. 1710 Elias Adam The enamel decoration on this service is based on engravings after a series of monumental Four Seasons paintings commissioned by King Louis XIV for the Château Saint-Cloud's Galerie d'Apollon. The design demonstrates the goldsmith's ability to convert already valuable metal into a treasured work of art, and the miniaturization of the paintings in the fragile enamel medium is a virtuosic feat. The service was probably not used for drinking, but rather admired through close examination and compared to memories of the paintings.
38. METMAR_191220_112.JPG: Grotesque wild boar 1603-1609 Caspar Beutmüller the Elder When Kunstkammer objects were too artistically important to have their silver components melted down, they sometimes evolved into family heirlooms and were protected from being sold. This hybrid boar, bat, and aquatic creature entered the Eltz treasury in 1738, when zoomorphic vessels were fashionable. It has remained in the family's treasury since. Renaissance medical texts ascribed coconuts beneficial powers, which would have been understood to act on the liquid inside the cup.
39. METMAR_191220_114.JPG: Standing Cup 1603-1610 Nicholas Pfaff This ivory cup, carved in a fluid, organic style and originally set in gilded-silver mounts, was displayed in the Kunstkammer of the landgraves of Baden-Baden in the eighteenth century. By drinking from this cup, with its lion's jaw and pelt, winged mermaid, and dolphins, the privileged user becomes part of the story carved on its walls. The imagery probably refers to an ancient myth in which the god Dionysus turns into a lion and transforms a band of pirates into dolphins.
40. METMAR_191220_116.JPG: Drinking Horn (the Tecklenburg Greifenklaue) 1540-50 German Mechthild von Tecklenburg, a landgravine (noblewoman) of Hesse by birth, gave this drinking horn to her grandnephew William IV in 1557. After he succeeded to the title, William made it a dynastic heirloom that could not be removed from the collection. The cup was thought to be fashioned from the claw of a mythological griffin, but the body is a single buffalo horn. While the legend of the griffin was refuted by the seventeenth century, a belief persisted that horn neutralized poison.
41. METMAR_191220_121.JPG: Chess and backgammon game board 17th century German, possibly Königsberg Game boards for playing chess, backgammon, and tric-trac (an early French variant of backgammon) served as diplomatic gifts and Kunstkammer display objects. Chess was integral to the instruction of potential rulers, as it helped develop the strategic thinking necessary on the battlefield. The game of goose, in which dice-throwing contestants raced to the center of the board while trying to avoid landing on certain symbols, was popular at the Medici court in Florence. This goose game board, designed after an Italian print and made by artisans in Gujarat for the European market, is the earliest known example in wood.
42. METMAR_191220_124.JPG: Chess and goose game board late 16th century India, Gujarat Game boards for playing chess, backgammon, and tric-trac (an early French variant of backgammon) served as diplomatic gifts and Kunstkammer display objects. Chess was integral to the instruction of potential rulers, as it helped develop the strategic thinking necessary on the battlefield. The game of goose, in which dice-throwing contestants raced to the center of the board while trying to avoid landing on certain symbols, was popular at the Medici court in Florence. This goose game board, designed after an Italian print and made by artisans in Gujarat for the European market, is the earliest known example in wood.
43. METMAR_191220_126.JPG: Chess and tric-trac game board second half 16th century or later German Game boards for playing chess, backgammon, and tric-trac (an early French variant of backgammon) served as diplomatic gifts and Kunstkammer display objects. Chess was integral to the instruction of potential rulers, as it helped develop the strategic thinking necessary on the battlefield. The game of goose, in which dice-throwing contestants raced to the center of the board while trying to avoid landing on certain symbols, was popular at the Medici court in Florence. This goose game board, designed after an Italian print and made by artisans in Gujarat for the European market, is the earliest known example in wood.
44. METMAR_191220_127.JPG: Chess and tric-trac game board second half 16th century or later German Game boards for playing chess, backgammon, and tric-trac (an early French variant of backgammon) served as diplomatic gifts and Kunstkammer display objects. Chess was integral to the instruction of potential rulers, as it helped develop the strategic thinking necessary on the battlefield. The game of goose, in which dice-throwing contestants raced to the center of the board while trying to avoid landing on certain symbols, was popular at the Medici court in Florence. This goose game board, designed after an Italian print and made by artisans in Gujarat for the European market, is the earliest known example in wood.
45. METMAR_191220_128.JPG: Casket ca. 1680 Attributed to Michel Redlin German One of the most treasured materials in central Europe, amber can be found to this day along the Baltic coast. Amber artworks manufactured in Danzig were particularly sought after. Early modern texts on the properties of gemstones linked the fiery appearance of the ancient petrified resin to medicinal properties: crushed amber was used in remedies to dry out "moist" diseases.
46. METMAR_191220_131.JPG: Goa Stone and Gold Case late 17th–early 18th century Bezoar stones -- gallstones naturally formed in the intestines of ruminant mammals -- came to Europe through trade along the Silk Road and with the East and West Indies in the sixteenth century. Believed to counteract poisons, they quickly became valued Kunstkammer items. This Goa stone is an artificial bezoar, likely composed of a paste of bezoar, clay, silt, crushed shell, amber, musk, resin, narwhal tusk, and crushed gemstones. Named for the region in India where they were manufactured by Jesuits, Goa stones were considered just as effective as their natural counterparts.
47. METMAR_191220_137.JPG: Ewer and stand (présentoir) 1758 Martin Gizl Austrian Only members of the court of the prince-archbishops of Salzburg could hunt the alpine ibex, and objects incorporating the animals' horns tend to be decorated with dramatic hunting scenes. Count Philipp Carl von Seinsheim, nephew to four bishops of the Schönborn family (major art patrons), commissioned this ensemble. Gizl carved its scenes in the style of valuable rhinoceros-horn vessels imported from China, thereby lending additional cachet to the local material.
48. METMAR_191220_140.JPG: "Invention" Mask of August the Strong 1709 Johann Melchior Dinglinger This mask was worn by Augustus II, better known as Augustus the Strong, at one of the many court festivals (called "inventions") held in Dresden during his reign. The elector of Saxony and king of Poland used these occasions to fashion his identity as ruler, dressing as a god or hero whose traits he admired. This mask associated Augustus with both the sun god Apollo and the famous Sun King, Louis XIV of France, whom he * met on a visit to Versailles in 1687.
49. METMAR_191220_143.JPG: Turban Snail Shell Cup second half 17th century Cornelis Bellekin Cornelis van Bellekin engraved the turban snail shell that forms the cup in the late seventeenth century. Around 1725, Elector Augustus the Strong's court jeweler, Johann Heinrich Köhler, set the shell in this intricate mount for display in Dresden's new treasury, the Grünes Gewölbe, alongside a matching example. The mount design does not relate to the engravings (a landscape with cavorting putti) but rather to the snail's marine home; the shaft is a double fish-tailed Triton.
50. METMAR_191220_146.JPG: The Rhinoceros early 17th century Bohemian, possibly Prague Albrecht Dürer likely based his captivating interpretation of a rhinoceros -- covered in hard plates and with scaly legs and an additional dorsal horn -- on a brief description and sketch of the animal sent to King Manuel I of Portugal in 1515. Though not an accurate representation, the rendering had a profound impact on subsequent depictions of the species. The Bohemian collage brings the armorlike hardness of Dürer's beast into three dimensions, enlivening it with the bright colors of valuable seashells from far-away oceans.
51. METMAR_191220_149.JPG: Covered jar ca. 1675–1700 Mexican Vessels of this type, called bucaros de Indias by their Spanish collectors, reached the height of their popularity in Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Fashionable women at the time also ate small portions of the fragrant red clay from which the jars were made, called tierra sigilada, because it was thought to have medicinal properties. The two jars displayed separately in this gallery were once in the collection of the marquises Bourbon del Monte di Sorbello in Perugia. The jars' good condition suggests they were used only as objects of display.
52. METMAR_191220_151.JPG: Covered jar ca. 1675–1700 Mexican Vessels of this type, called bucaros de Indias by their Spanish collectors, reached the height of their popularity in Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Fashionable women at the time also ate small portions of the fragrant red clay from which the jars were made, called tierra sigilada, because it was thought to have medicinal properties. The two jars displayed separately in this gallery were once in the collection of the marquises Bourbon del Monte di Sorbello in Perugia. The jars' good condition suggests they were used only as objects of display.
53. METMAR_191220_156.JPG: Covered jar ca. 1675–1700 Mexican Vessels of this type, called bucaros de Indias by their Spanish collectors, reached the height of their popularity in Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Fashionable women at the time also ate small portions of the fragrant red clay from which the jars were made, called tierra sigilada, because it was thought to have medicinal properties. The two jars displayed separately in this gallery were once in the collection of the marquises Bourbon del Monte di Sorbello in Perugia. The jars' good condition suggests they were used only as objects of display.
54. METMAR_191220_157.JPG: Triumphal arch with two obelisks before 1705 Johann Heinrich Köhler This ensemble by the goldsmith of Augustus the Strong is patterned after ephemeral festival architecture at the Dresden court. While the pyramidal obelisks and triumphal arches erected in the palace precinct for special occasions lasted only a few days, these miniaturized versions endured as a monument, kept safely in the Dresden Kunstkammer. The multiple busts of black Africans reflect Augustus's interest in the culture of the "exotic" world south of the Sahara.
55. METMAR_191220_160.JPG: Triumphal arch with two obelisks before 1705 Johann Heinrich Köhler This ensemble by the goldsmith of Augustus the Strong is patterned after ephemeral festival architecture at the Dresden court. While the pyramidal obelisks and triumphal arches erected in the palace precinct for special occasions lasted only a few days, these miniaturized versions endured as a monument, kept safely in the Dresden Kunstkammer. The multiple busts of black Africans reflect Augustus's interest in the culture of the "exotic" world south of the Sahara.
56. METMAR_191220_161.JPG: Three Portrait Miniature Stands ca. 1748 Johann Salomon Meyer of Zerbst While portrait miniatures were worn as jewelry as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century, these inventive mother-of-pearl stands pair them with precious natural materials associated with the Kunstkammer. Two of the portraits in the diamond-encrusted frames held aloft by the gold putti likely represent Prince Ludwig von Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. The third sitter has yet to be identified.
57. METMAR_191220_164.JPG: Tankard ca. 1585 Bohemian, Prague (Czech Republic) Cranes, such as the one on the lid of this tankard, symbolized alertness, an essential attribute of the wise prince. Princes used objects like these to communicate their personal virtues and those of their realm; no doubt mined in Bohemia, the garnets encircling the tankard demonstrated the land's richness. The princely owner may have believed that the beveled rock crystal, sometimes called "the frozen tears of the gods," would keep the liquid inside cold.
58. METMAR_191220_167.JPG: Bust of Emperor Hadrian Head, 1240; Bust, ca. 1600; Socle and Base, ca. 1850 Head: court workshop of Emperor Frederick II The powerful often had art that had survived from past empires incorporated into new works. The head of this bust was carved in the court workshop of Emperor Frederick II in 1240. Around 1600, the piece was ingeniously fitted with this glittering gold bust, also made in a Sicilian workshop. By having antique objects, particularly those in the likeness of kings and emperors past, placed in exquisite mounts, contemporary rulers connected themselves with a long tradition of authority and enhanced their legitimacy as sovereigns.
59. METMAR_191220_171.JPG: Potter first half of the 18th century German, Dresden These two statuettes are part of a large collection acquired by Elector Augustus the Strong between 1694 and 1733. Predominantly depictions of vendors and artisans in elegant clothing, figures of this type, called Galanterien, represent the everyday experience of craftsmen in the Baroque period.
60. METMAR_191220_174.JPG: Street Vendor with Backpack Dispenser first quarter of the 18th century French These two statuettes are part of a large collection acquired by Elector Augustus the Strong between 1694 and 1733. Predominantly depictions of vendors and artisans in elegant clothing, figures of this type, called Galanterien, represent the everyday experience of craftsmen in the Baroque period.
61. METMAR_191220_177.JPG: Street Vendor with Backpack Dispenser first quarter of the 18th century French These two statuettes are part of a large collection acquired by Elector Augustus the Strong between 1694 and 1733. Predominantly depictions of vendors and artisans in elegant clothing, figures of this type, called Galanterien, represent the everyday experience of craftsmen in the Baroque period.
62. METMAR_191220_185.JPG: Turban Snail Shell Cup second half 17th century Cornelis Bellekin Cornelis van Bellekin engraved the turban snail shell that forms the cup in the late seventeenth century. Around 1725, Elector Augustus the Strong's court jeweler, Johann Heinrich Köhler, set the shell in this intricate mount for display in Dresden's new treasury, the Grünes Gewölbe, alongside a matching example. The mount design does not relate to the engravings (a landscape with cavorting putti) but rather to the snail's marine home; the shaft is a double fish-tailed Triton.
63. METMAR_191220_187.JPG: Turban Snail Shell Cup second half 17th century Cornelis Bellekin Cornelis van Bellekin engraved the turban snail shell that forms the cup in the late seventeenth century. Around 1725, Elector Augustus the Strong's court jeweler, Johann Heinrich Köhler, set the shell in this intricate mount for display in Dresden's new treasury, the Grünes Gewölbe, alongside a matching example. The mount design does not relate to the engravings (a landscape with cavorting putti) but rather to the snail's marine home; the shaft is a double fish-tailed Triton.
64. METMAR_191220_190.JPG: Ewer and basin 1590-1594 Abraham Pfleger I For early modern scholars, the hard shells of soft-bodied mollusks bridged two realms of nature: the perishable animal and the enduring mineral. Despite the beauty of their homes, mollusks were confined to their hard shells and the burden of carrying them. The artist suggests this duality with the Janus-headed figures at the corners of this basin (the hair on the back of each head forms a lionlike face). The shell between the spread fish tails probably alludes to the presumed aphrodisiac effect of eating shellfish.
65. METMAR_191220_194.JPG: Turban Shell Cup with Foot in the Form of a Dragon mid 17th century German The two shells used to fashion this cup originated in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. A spider conch was made into the base, its flesh replaced by sculpted and gilded silver to form a dragon. Turban snail shells like the one that forms the cup symbolized vanity, as the sea snail was forced to leave its stunning home behind after death. Interpretations like this were part of Renaissance understandings of nature, and many persisted in the cultural consciousness well into the seventeenth century.
66. METMAR_191220_198.JPG: Ewer and basin 1590-1594 Abraham Pfleger I For early modern scholars, the hard shells of soft-bodied mollusks bridged two realms of nature: the perishable animal and the enduring mineral. Despite the beauty of their homes, mollusks were confined to their hard shells and the burden of carrying them. The artist suggests this duality with the Janus-headed figures at the corners of this basin (the hair on the back of each head forms a lionlike face). The shell between the spread fish tails probably alludes to the presumed aphrodisiac effect of eating shellfish.
67. METMAR_191220_200.JPG: Turban Shell Cup with Foot in the Form of a Dragon mid 17th century German The two shells used to fashion this cup originated in the Indo-Pacific Ocean. A spider conch was made into the base, its flesh replaced by sculpted and gilded silver to form a dragon. Turban snail shells like the one that forms the cup symbolized vanity, as the sea snail was forced to leave its stunning home behind after death. Interpretations like this were part of Renaissance understandings of nature, and many persisted in the cultural consciousness well into the seventeenth century.
68. METMAR_191220_202.JPG: Seychelles nut vessel last quarter of the 16th century Portuguese Westerners who found Seychelles nuts as flotsam on Maldives beaches believed them to have come from the depths of the sea (never having seen the rare trees that produce them). Early modern medical texts attributed powerful healing properties to the nuts, which drove demand and expense to great heights. The skilled goldsmith who fashioned this vessel used half of an enormous Seychelles nut -- in its entirety, this would be the largest surviving historical example of the specimen. Its size would have added to an already high value.
69. METMAR_191220_204.JPG: A Fascination with Facets "The brilliancy and value of jewels is one of the surest means of adding something to the importance of our being; they proclaim us from afar." -- Jean André Rouquet, 1755 Long associated with heavenly bodies, magic powers, and healing properties, gemstones were integral to the collection space known as the Kunstkammer. Rulers displayed them as powerful marvels of the natural world, either in their uncut state or incorporated into the complex decorative program of a precious object. As new sources were discovered over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gemstones became a distinct field of scientific inquiry, and scholars experimented to establish the relative durability of different types. Eighteenth-century innovations in gem-cutting techniques released their inner brilliance. Cut diamonds, sapphires, and jacinths became centerpieces of princely display. These gemstones were still associated with the heavens and with healing, but when precisely cut into sparkling jewels they also implied a sophisticated knowledge of proportions, geometry, and refraction. Artisans incorporated intricately faceted gemstones into the highest emblems of honor, displayed in royal treasuries and adorning the powerful to evoke awe during public appearances. Jewelry sets studded with gemstones like those in this gallery served both as splendid markers of wealth and as symbols of the hidden potential within nature.
70. METMAR_191220_207.JPG: Order of the White Eagle, Ceremonial Sword, and Hat Ornament, from the Sapphire Garniture of Augustus the Strong 1710-1722 Johann Melchior Dinglinger These pieces belong to the oldest of twelve sets of jewels commissioned by Augustus the Strong and his son, Frederick Augustus II. Together, those sets made up most of the Saxon-Polish crown treasure and served as an indispensable sign of royal majesty. The eagle-and-star emblem of the Polish Order of the White Eagle (established by Augustus the Strong in 1705) is the oldest jewel of its kind from a royal collection. The sword was created at the same time as the hat ornament, which features a lynx sapphire from Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and was used to pin up the brim of a three-cornered hat. The wearing of sapphires was thought to lend strength and mental fortitude during battle. Augustus the Strong would also have appreciated the sky-colored stone's associations with the sun god Apollo and absolute royal power.
71. METMAR_191220_211.JPG: Order of the White Eagle, Ceremonial Sword, and Hat Ornament, from the Sapphire Garniture of Augustus the Strong 1710-1722 Johann Melchior Dinglinger These pieces belong to the oldest of twelve sets of jewels commissioned by Augustus the Strong and his son, Frederick Augustus II. Together, those sets made up most of the Saxon-Polish crown treasure and served as an indispensable sign of royal majesty. The eagle-and-star emblem of the Polish Order of the White Eagle (established by Augustus the Strong in 1705) is the oldest jewel of its kind from a royal collection. The sword was created at the same time as the hat ornament, which features a lynx sapphire from Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) and was used to pin up the brim of a three-cornered hat. The wearing of sapphires was thought to lend strength and mental fortitude during battle. Augustus the Strong would also have appreciated the sky-colored stone's associations with the sun god Apollo and absolute royal power.
72. METMAR_191220_215.JPG: Order of the Golden Fleece 1741 German, Dresden The order of the Golden Fleece, established on January 10, 1430, by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, was the most important chivalric order in Europe. It was restricted to Catholic princes and other noblemen, to whom the order's badge contributed great stature. In 1722, Emperor Charles VI dubbed both Augustus the Strong and his son, Frederick Augustus II, knights of the Golden Fleece, which authorized them to commission elaborately jeweled versions of the order's insignia, with its hanging ram's fleece. Frederick Augustus II bought this jacinth-studded example in 1741. The writers of Renaissance lapidaries claimed the glowing red stone could increase wisdom and cure madness.
73. METMAR_191220_217.JPG: Hat ornament with the "Dresden Green" from the Diamond Garniture 1769, older elements Vienna 1746 Franz Diespach This ornament features the largest natural green diamond in the world, the only one of its type ever found. Elector of Saxony Frederick Augustus II bought the 41-carat gemstone in 1742. It was used in several royal jewels, including a pendant of the Order of the Golden Fleece, before his grandson, Frederick Augustus III, had it incorporated -- together with two round white diamonds of 6.3 and 19.3 carats, and over four hundred smaller diamonds -- into this piece, which has remained untouched since 1769. Formed deep in the earth under immense pressure, diamonds were perhaps the most mythologized gemstone, thought to protect the wearer from poison, madness, and evil dreams. This diamond's captivating, evenly distributed green color resulted from a rare type of ionizing radiation underground. The cutter departed from common eighteenth-century practice to fashion a modified pear-shaped brilliant gem, precisely faceted to enhance its sparkle.
74. METMAR_191220_220.JPG: The Scientific Instrument as Work of Art "O telescope, instrument of much knowledge, more precious than any scepter! Is not he who holds thee in his hand made king and lord of the works of God!" -- - Johannes Kepler, 1611 Seventeenth-century advocates of the "new science" such as Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei believed that they could uncover the secrets of nature by analyzing the world through mathematics and its related disciplines, geometry and astronomy. Competency in these fields yielded powerful knowledge, and rulers increasingly supported the development of new equipment to aid in observation, induction, and experimentation. From models of the solar system to tools for improving the accuracy of cannons, the courtly instruments in these galleries could help further a prince's reputation as a wise, judicious sovereign. Young princes learned to use them in preparation for the rigors of governance, some becoming respected astronomers in their own right. Ruling families employed instrument makers well into the eighteenth century, adding increasingly sophisticated mathematical, optical, and astronomical devices to their collections. The growing popularity of scientific apparatus as symbols of might is signaled by their precious materials and sumptuous decoration. These captivating pieces served both as tools of princely self-representation and as devices for measuring -- in hopes of subsequently manipulating -- the world.
75. METMAR_191220_223.JPG: Instrument of the "Primum Mobile" 1568 Ignazio Danti Most Renaissance scholars understood the universe as geocentric, with the planets orbiting the earth. This instrument, the only one of its kind, is named after the outermost celestial sphere in that model, the primum mobile. Petrus Apianus first described the tool, meant to be used to determine sines and cosines, in his 1524 book on trigonometry, Instrumentum primi mobilis. Ignazio Danti realized the design of the instrument for his patron, Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and engraved it with the Medici coat of arms.
76. METMAR_191220_226.JPG: Arithmetic Machine (Pascaline) 1647 Blaise Pascal First presented to the public in 1645, Blaise Pascal's machine can add and subtract large numbers. One of the earliest mechanical calculators, the Pascaline was critical to the development of later examples, such as Wilhelm Leibniz's stepped reckoner, the first to perform multiplication and division. Pascal enjoyed the patronage of King Louis XIV, who granted him a royal privilege for the design and manufacturing of calculating machines.
77. METMAR_191220_228.JPG: Desk Set with Telescope and Writing Utensils first half of the 17th century German This skillfully turned ivory telescope is not functional: while its lenses can be directed, they are mounted too imprecisely for successful magnification. From the time they were invented in the early seventeenth century, telescopes were among the most favored scientific objects in the princely Kunstkammer, as their ground lenses allowed observation of celestial bodies invisible to the naked eye. Likely never used, this piece is more marvel than instrument, an expression of the importance of the observational possibilities promised by the telescope.
78. METMAR_191220_229.JPG: Microscope ca. 1750 Optical elements by Claude-Siméon Passemant As official instrument maker to Louis XV, Claude Siméon Passemant likely created this microscope for the king himself. The elegant C-scroll decoration on its mount, which elevates the tool to a work of art, affirms the high regard in which scientific inquiry was held in the eighteenth century. Microscopy was a favorite pastime among the aristocracy, and the French court was one of the few places where the tool remained in use for the observation of nature's minute details throughout the period.
79. METMAR_191220_234.JPG: Armillary Sphere 17th century probably Italian Both calculating instrument and teaching aid, the armillary sphere was key to early modern astronomy in Europe. Scholars used it to determine and display the celestial coordinates of the planets. Composed of eight graduated rings encircling a central earth, this example demonstrates how the geocentric system maintained its status into the seventeenth century as a valid scientific model.
80. METMAR_191220_235.JPG: Encryption Device 1547–1559 French This device, which belonged to King Henry II of France, encrypts messages using a "polyalphabetic" system rather than a single, fixed rearrangement of the alphabet. For example, sender and receiver might agree on the following set of variable transpositions: the first letter of the message shifts by one position, the second by two, the third by three, and so on. This would produce the following code: * * METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART * NGWVTVVTRDLZ ZIHULE HZ VNM
81. METMAR_191220_237.JPG: Cryptological Dividers 1633 Joachim Deuerlin Used to encode and decode secret messages, these dividers are topped by striking openwork. When the disk is turned to select a letter with the pointer at the top, the spikes protruding from the bottom move accordingly, changing the distance between them. Letters are thus converted into distances and recorded as lines of corresponding length.
82. METMAR_191220_240.JPG: Mechanical Paradox third quarter of the 18th century Italian, Florence An ingenious instrument used to link theory with observable phenomena, this sophisticated object, the product of both the cabinetmaker's and instrument maker's arts, demonstrates a trick of physics: the double climbing cone (also known as a mechanical paradox). The Habsburg grand dukes of Tuscany commissioned mechanical models like this one from the best artisans in order to confirm their position at the top of the social order and present themselves as dynastic rulers with scientific interests. Video While it seems impossible when viewing the stationary object, the animation here shows how the pair of brass cones rolls from the low end of the frame upward, appearing to defy gravity. The motion is the result of the law of mechanics: as the two cones travel, their resting points shift toward the tips, lowering the center of gravity and drawing them up the incline. During this journey, the tips of the cones descend by about half an inch.
83. METMAR_191220_243.JPG: Mechanical Paradox third quarter of the 18th century Italian, Florence
84. METMAR_191220_246.JPG: Multifaced Equatorial Sundial 1604 Wolfgang Mayr Despite mechanical advances, sundials remained the most reliable instruments for measuring time in the seventeenth century. This elegant example tells the hour on five different dials. It also includes ways of calculating the reigning planet for each hour of the day and the sun's position in a given zodiac sign. Finely engraved Latin inscriptions on the vertical dials allude to the effects of time: on the right bar is a quote from Horace, "Death stands at the end of all things"; across from it is the biblical phrase "Seek me and I shall not be."
85. METMAR_191220_250.JPG: Multifaced Equatorial Sundial 1604 Wolfgang Mayr
86. METMAR_191220_251.JPG: Anamorphosis after 1700 German The creation of this distorted watercolor, which translates into a rectified image in the cylindrical mirror, required a complex series of geometric calculations. The drawing is one of thirteen recorded in a 1765 inventory of the optics room at the court of Hesse-Kassel. Optical tricks like these speak to the playful and often bizarre aspects of Renaissance and Baroque science.
87. METMAR_191220_254.JPG: Anamorphosis after 1700 German
88. METMAR_191220_259.JPG: icture Puzzle of Christian V, King of Denmark and Norway 1685 Bendix Grodtschilling the Elder Duke Frederick III of Gottorf's Kunstkammer featured several optical and mathematical instruments, including this picture puzzle. The piece playfully demonstrates the laws of perspective and light refraction. The panel pictures Queen Sophie Amalie of Denmark surrounded by eight royal ancestors. Gazing through the faceted lens in the eyepiece, however, one sees her son King Christian V of Denmark and Norway. Guessing the trick would have been an amusing game for the duke's guests. Video This animation conveys the experience of looking through the scope to find the king's image, then demonstrates how it is created in the lens. Each of the multiple refractions made by the faceted lens in the eyepiece captures one small fragment of every portrait surrounding Queen Sophie and the shards are reassembled for the viewer's eye into Christian V's likeness.
89. METMAR_191220_262.JPG: Chalice Sundial before 1590 Anonymous, after Virgil Solis The inner surface of this cup is inscribed with the hour and solar altitude scales -- a sundial. The user held the chalice parallel to the horizon line and rotated it until the shadow of the metal peg, or gnomon, inside the cup lay in the correct month. The tip of the gnomon's shadow would then indicate the true solar time. Although the telling of time may seem incongruous with drinking games, early modern science integrated forms of play that were not seen to detract from its seriousness.
90. METMAR_191220_263.JPG: Portable diptych sundial 1602 Paulus Reinman This multifunctional sundial incorporates a compass, provides the time in two different twenty-four-hour systems (Babylonian hours, beginning at sunrise, and Italian hours, beginning at sunset), and indicates the number of daylight hours throughout the year. It can be used from Gdansk (Danzig) to the Greek island of Corfu, as the latitude table on the vertical leaf indicates. The engravings include two enchanting scenes of musicians and lovers.
91. METMAR_191220_265.JPG: Western Astrolabe ca. 1591 Tobias Volckmer Tobias Volckmer made this astrolabe prior to his appointment as goldsmith and mathematician to the Bavarian court. He may have created the lavishly decorated object for Emperor Rudolf II, who was keenly interested in astronomy and astrology. Admired as the "queen" of scientific instruments, the astrolabe combines a model of the cosmos and a universal calculating tool. One side bears a two-dimensional projection of the world that can demonstrate the apparent rotation of the stars; the other side serves as a tool for calculating angles.
92. METMAR_191220_268.JPG: Planispheric Astrolabe dated A.H. 1065/ A.D. 1654–55 Muhammad Zaman al-Munajjim al-Asturlabi This astrolabe is composed of five stacked circular plates engraved with terrestrial latitudes, rotating around the axis of a central pin. The uppermost pierced brass plate (rete in Latin) -- decorated in the form of the bismallah, the opening phrase of many chapters in the Qur'an -- points toward a number of fixed stars to indicate their celestial positions. European instrument makers used Islamic scientific instruments as models, and collectors appreciated them as objects of curiosity.
93. METMAR_191220_269.JPG: Orrery clock 1790 Louis Thouverez Eighteenth-century scholars developed orreries to model planetary motion in three dimensions. This example uses the heliocentric model (with the sun rather than the earth at its center) first proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus in the sixteenth century. Decorative spring-driven orreries such as this one were popular among the learned aristocracy: Louis Thouverez served as clockmaker to the duke of Orléans, cousin of King Louis XVI.
94. METMAR_191220_274.JPG: Surveying table for plotting fortifications 17th century German The ornate marquetry on this instrument's top pictures an octagonal fortress layout. Using it as a pattern, a surveyor could position the instrument to establish crucial points on the terrain. During the wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fortifications were crucial to territorial defense. Princes eagerly supported their instrument makers in the production of prototypes for new surveying instruments like this one.
95. METMAR_191220_277.JPG: Solar Observation Shield first quarter of the 17th century German, probably Augsburg This mysterious instrument has been in the collection of the Esterházy princes since 1696. It is likely the only one of its kind, and its function remains unknown. The height of the large disk of blue glass atop the striking wood and silver mount is adjustable; it may have been used to shield the eyes of a person observing an eclipse or the movement of the sun.
96. METMAR_191220_282.JPG: Mining Compass dated 1561 German Tools like this one were designed to measure the tunnels and shafts of silver mines, a major source of wealth for the Saxon electors. Like the adjacent gunner's level, this ornate version of the instrument was intended not for everyday use but for display in the Kunstkammer. It bears representations of the Renaissance planetary gods with their corresponding metals and astrological signs, including sun/gold/Leo; Venus/copper/Taurus; Mercury/mercury/Gemini; moon/silver/Cancer; Saturn/lead/Aquarius; and Jupiter/tin/Sagittarius.
97. METMAR_191220_288.JPG: Gunner's Level 1614 Christopher Trechsler Fitted into the mouth of a cannon, this gunner's level was designed to sight targets, improve the precision of the weapon's aim, and ease calculation of the ball's trajectory. Gunner's levels could measure angles much more accurately than cannons could shoot, and were rarely used on the battlefield. Beautiful versions like this were kept in the Kunstkammer to incite learned discussions of ballistics. The object's function is reflected in its ornamentation: the spandrels are engraved with war paraphernalia, including a cannon, shield, breastplate, and muskets.
98. METMAR_191220_291.JPG: Scientific Instrument Case of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor 1637-1642 Emperor Ferdinand III Handwritten instructions for the twenty instruments in this case record that the set was made for Emperor Ferdinand III to support his education in cosmography, astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic and their various applications (such as determining disputed borders). Johann Melchior Volckmair's masterpiece, the ensemble reflects the goldsmith and mathematician's genius as a scientist-artist. In addition to the instruments and instructions, the three stacked silver compartments include six maps of Europe and the Holy Land and are topped by a statuette of Hercules supporting the globe.
99. METMAR_191220_297.JPG: Scientific Instrument Case of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor 1637-1642 Emperor Ferdinand III Handwritten instructions for the twenty instruments in this case record that the set was made for Emperor Ferdinand III to support his education in cosmography, astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic and their various applications (such as determining disputed borders). Johann Melchior Volckmair's masterpiece, the ensemble reflects the goldsmith and mathematician's genius as a scientist-artist. In addition to the instruments and instructions, the three stacked silver compartments include six maps of Europe and the Holy Land and are topped by a statuette of Hercules supporting the globe.
100. METMAR_191220_298.JPG: Mathematical Instrument Chest of Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel 1686 Johann Heinrich Burchart This chest holds nearly forty instruments for geometry, military use, and surveying. It was made for Landgrave Charles I likely as a symbol of his schooling in mathematics, given the instruments' fine construction. The proportional compass and gunner's level (of a different design than the other example in this gallery) were devised for the making of calculations on the battlefield. The impressive instrument with four sights is a Holland circle, used for surveying and for planning fortifications.
101. METMAR_191220_299.JPG: Mathematical Instrument Chest of Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel 1686 Johann Heinrich Burchart This chest holds nearly forty instruments for geometry, military use, and surveying. It was made for Landgrave Charles I likely as a symbol of his schooling in mathematics, given the instruments' fine construction. The proportional compass and gunner's level (of a different design than the other example in this gallery) were devised for the making of calculations on the battlefield. The impressive instrument with four sights is a Holland circle, used for surveying and for planning fortifications.
102. METMAR_191220_300.JPG: Solar Observation Shield first quarter of the 17th century German, probably Augsburg This mysterious instrument has been in the collection of the Esterházy princes since 1696. It is likely the only one of its kind, and its function remains unknown. The height of the large disk of blue glass atop the striking wood and silver mount is adjustable; it may have been used to shield the eyes of a person observing an eclipse or the movement of the sun.
103. METMAR_191220_303.JPG: Aeolipile (Steamblower) ca. 1590 - 1600 South German (Augsburg) or Bohemian (Prague) This mysterious sculpture hides an ancient steam technology: an aeolipile. When filled partway with water through an opening in the sphinx's headpiece and heated to high temperatures, the vessel releases pressurized steam through a pin-size hole between the figure's lips. If blown over glowing coals, the steam can create a flammable gas composed of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and the sculpture appears to spit fire just like the mythological sphinx. Artistically crafted aeolipiles served as display pieces and were used to regulate the heat of hearth fires and furnaces, and to power machinery.
104. METMAR_191220_307.JPG: Aeolipile (Steamblower) ca. 1590 - 1600 South German (Augsburg) or Bohemian (Prague) This mysterious sculpture hides an ancient steam technology: an aeolipile. When filled partway with water through an opening in the sphinx's headpiece and heated to high temperatures, the vessel releases pressurized steam through a pin-size hole between the figure's lips. If blown over glowing coals, the steam can create a flammable gas composed of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and the sculpture appears to spit fire just like the mythological sphinx. Artistically crafted aeolipiles served as display pieces and were used to regulate the heat of hearth fires and furnaces, and to power machinery.
105. METMAR_191220_309.JPG: Model Carriage second half of the 17th century probably South German Though it is unlikely that an odometer would have been affixed to a vehicle of this exact type, this precise small-scale reproduction of a carriage from about 1680 illustrates the structure of Renaissance and Baroque coaches. The ornamented sheets of silver that cover the model recall the silver furniture suites popular among the aristocracy at the time; documents describe full-scale parade and ambassadorial carriages covered in silver, but none survive.
106. METMAR_191220_312.JPG: Model Carriage second half of the 17th century probably South German
107. METMAR_191220_317.JPG: Training the Princely Mind and Hand The Kunstkammer often included not only mathematical instruments but also the most advanced devices of artisanal production, which "prince practitioners" used in workshops appended to their collections. Early modern science, which can be broadly described as the investigation of nature and the cosmos, covered a wide range of activities. As pursuits such as turning ivory, practicing alchemy, or working as a goldsmith became seen as legitimate ways of studying natural forces, the powerful funneled resources toward them, seeking to develop visionary products and processes. These activities were also essential to courtly education and leisure. Princes competed to acquire the most cutting-edge tools and to earn renown for their abilities, strengthening their legitimacy as sovereigns. Technical knowledge was tied to political authority, morality, and wisdom. The honing of skill in a range of disciplines was likened to the self-mastery and practical wisdom deemed fundamental traits of a good ruler. Craft tools served as proof of these virtues, so princes displayed lavish examples in the Kunstkammer alongside showpieces produced with them by distinguished master artisans.
108. METMAR_191220_318.JPG: Wire Drawing Bench of the Saxon Electors before 1565 Leonhard Danner Video The bench is designed for the production of thin wire from gold, silver, and other metals. The end product was used in the decoration of weapons, furniture, and vessels, and for weaving and embroidery. Threaded through a draw plate, the metal was pulled with pincers and wound around a drawing winch to be cranked along the bench. The process was repeated through successively smaller holes in the draw plates to obtain the desired diameter. Goldsmiths had used tools of this type since the late Middle Ages, but this unusually large example would have outperformed the smaller models in most workshops. With it, a skilled artisan could also cut screws, springs, and fine moldings. It is unclear whether Augustus used the bench himself, but he and his guests would have appreciated its state-of-the-art design. A Prince Practitioner Augustus, Elector of Saxony, commissioned this innovative device from the Nuremberg artist-engineer, cabinetmaker, and screw maker Leonhard Danner. Affectionately nicknamed "Father Augustus" and "Mother Anna" by their people, the ruler and his wife both sought out activities in agriculture, alchemy, and medicine that might help to improve the Saxon economy. The Kunstkammer Augustus assembled in Dresden reflects these interests: at the time of his death nearly 80 percent of its holdings were related to the arts and sciences. Marvelous Marquetry The size of the bench made it a perfect canvas for an extravagant program of marquetry, or decorative inlaid wood, designed by an unknown artist with the initials "A.M." to appeal to Augustus's tastes. In addition to his practical work, the elector crafted his public image by staging elaborate tournaments. The long sides of the bench feature tournament scenes, while each end features his coat of arms. The inclusion of disparaging caricatures of Catholics reflects Augustus's status as a strict adherent of the newly established Protestant faith. The Bench and Its Parts Augustus had the bench and its accompanying tools installed in his Dresden Kunstkammer in 1566. While the piece and most of its accessories are now in the collection of the Musée National de la Renaissance in Écouen, France, its drawing winch, wire roll, and a lifting jack also by Danner remained in Dresden. The engraved drawing winch and the wire roll are part of the bench's mechanism. The various parts are reunited here for the first time in North America.
109. METMAR_191220_325.JPG: Wire Drawing Bench of the Saxon Electors before 1565 Leonhard Danner
110. METMAR_191220_328.JPG: Wire Drawing Bench of the Saxon Electors before 1565 Leonhard Danner
111. METMAR_191220_329.JPG: Drawing Winch before 1565 Leonhard Danner This piece was made as part of the Wire-Drawing Bench that Augustus, Elector of Saxony commissioned from Nuremberg artist-engineer, cabinetmaker, and screw maker Leonhard Danner in 1565. Augustus had the bench and its accompanying tools installed in his Dresden Kunstkammer in 1566. It was used to crank wire along the bench. While the bench and most of its accessories are now in the collection of the Musée National de la Renaissance in Écouen, France, its drawing winch, wire roll, and a lifting jack also by Danner remained in Dresden. The engraved drawing winch and the wire roll are part of the bench's mechanism. The various parts are reunited here for the first time in North America.
112. METMAR_191220_331.JPG: Wire Drawing Bench of the Saxon Electors before 1565 Leonhard Danner
113. METMAR_191220_333.JPG: Alchemical table bell of Emperor Rudolf II ca. 1600 Hans Bulla Emperor Rudolf II is reputed to have used this bell in his practice of alchemy, a complex discipline centering on the transformation of matter. Goldsmith Hans Bulla claimed to have cast the bell from an alloy of seven different metals, a powerful substance called "electrum" in alchemical texts. Its decorations -- including the seven planetary gods, their symbols, and the associated zodiac signs, as well as Greek and Hebrew letters on the interior -- relate to rituals and beliefs associated with alchemy.
114. METMAR_191220_334.JPG: Alchemical Furnace of Augustus, Elector of Saxony ca. 1575 German, Dresden This furnace is the only surviving instrument from the alchemical laboratory founded by Elector Augustus in 1556. It was designed for assaying, heating metallic bodies to determine the proportions of their constituent metals, a process used in both mining operations and efforts to make gold. Alchemists believed occult connections between the heavens and the earth influenced the development of ore. Accordingly, the furnace features the seven planetary gods and their metallic counterparts, most prominently the sun, the moon, and Mercury. That triad reflects the recurrence of gold, silver, and mercury as main ingredients in alchemical recipes.
115. METMAR_191220_336.JPG: Portable Cabinet with Drawers 16th century Japan Both of these cabinets were designed to appeal to European collectors. The fall-front lid of the German cabinet reveals six skeletal geometries executed in perspective to resemble stylish designs by famed goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer. The equally desirable Japanese nanban lacquer on the larger cabinet has been adapted to a European form; the configuration of the drawers matches those in the cabinet displayed beside it. Nanban, meaning "southern barbarian," was used in Japan to designate objects made for foreign markets, and referred to the southern route European trade ships took to reach Japan.
116. METMAR_191220_337.JPG: Miniature collector's cabinet ca. 1600 After a composition by Bernard Salomon French Both of these cabinets were designed to appeal to European collectors. The fall-front lid of the German cabinet reveals six skeletal geometries executed in perspective to resemble stylish designs by famed goldsmith Wenzel Jamnitzer. The equally desirable Japanese nanban lacquer on the larger cabinet has been adapted to a European form; the configuration of the drawers matches those in the cabinet displayed beside it. Nanban, meaning "southern barbarian," was used in Japan to designate objects made for foreign markets, and referred to the southern route European trade ships took to reach Japan.
117. METMAR_191220_338.JPG: Writing and Reading Box ca. 1570 German, Nuremberg As geometry gained popularity as part of princely education, geometric forms became a popular subject for marquetry. The inlaid design on the lid of this box displays a staggered collection of twenty perspectival geometries based on manipulations of the five forms known as the Platonic solids. Boxes of this general type were used atop a desk or table to ease reading and to store writing instruments; only eleven pieces featuring polyhedral imagery made using this inlay technique survive.
118. METMAR_191220_340.JPG: Scale with Counterweight for Measuring Gold 1560-70 Wenzel Jamnitzer Guarded by the fierce life-cast lizard on the movable counterweight, the female figure on the stem of this scale is likely an allegorical representation of Justice, as scales symbolized trustworthy and accurate measure. A small, jewel-like scale such as this was probably used to weigh gold and precious stones, or ingredients in the experiments of princes and their alchemists. It belongs to a small group of surviving measuring instruments produced in Jamnitzer's workshop.
119. METMAR_191220_342.JPG: Writing Box 1560-1570 Wenzel Jamnitzer Ordinarily set side by side in a single box, these pieces are the best examples of casting in silver from live specimens. Only a few artists knew the technique, but princes practiced it as well; it was recommended that they set up casting operations in the same complex as the alchemical furnace and laboratory. Wenzel Jamnitzer, court goldsmith to four Habsburg emperors -- Charles V, Ferdinand　I, Maximilian II, and Rudolf II -- was the master of life casting. One of the most celebrated works of silver in the world, this set is the apex of his considerable skills.
120. METMAR_191220_347.JPG: Portrait of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, King of Poland, and Grand Duke of Lithuania after ca. 1712–20 Attributed to Georg Friedrich Dinglinger This painted enamel on copper is one of the earliest attempts to produce a large oval portrait inspired by miniatures in a durable material. Georg Friedrich Dinglinger dedicated years of alchemical experimentation to perfecting what he called his "Amolier art" for monumental enamel. The portrait is painted en camaïeu (in two or three tints of a single color) in a robust pink that suggests the addition of gold, as in the glass goblet nearby.
121. METMAR_191220_350.JPG: Lidded Tankard 1654 Emperor Leopold I Future Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I turned the body of this tankard when he was only fourteen. Turning ivory on a lathe demanded self-control and patience; without these traits, the turner could easily damage a piece if his or her concentration wavered. The practice was widely understood as a metaphor for good governance, as a similar slip in attention as a ruler could endanger the integrity of the realm. This made the activity a favored exercise in the education of young princes and princesses.
122. METMAR_191220_352.JPG: Turned-Ivory Piece with Star in Polyhedron ca. 1600 German, probably Dresden These bizarre objects perfectly encapsulate the intricate aesthetic favored by seventeenth-century connoisseurs of turned ivory. The larger, turned by the famed artisan Lorenz Zick, has a hollow sphere containing paintings of Saint Francis and the Virgin Mary, visible through the opening when the cords are pulled. The smaller, with its delicate tilted disks, star, and dodecahedrons, incorporates several forms that marked mastery over the lathe.
123. METMAR_191220_353.JPG: Ferdinando de' Medici (1663–1713), Grand Prince of Tuscany ca. 1680–82 Giovanni Battista Foggini Italian Under the tutelage of artisan Filippo Sengher, Prince Ferdinando de' Medici turned this cup and cover when he was just eighteen -- around the same time that Giovanni Battista Foggini immortalized his likeness in this marble bust. The prince likely used a lathe that Sengher had constructed for him in 1679. More sophisticated than earlier ivories turned by Ferdinando, the cup marks his advancing abilities under his teacher's guidance.
124. METMAR_191220_355.JPG: Rose-Engine Lathe mid-18th century Lambert Xhrouet Ivory was turned on lathes, machines that rotated a given piece in a single direction and at a steady pace, so that it could be precisely shaped with a variety of cutting tools. On this lathe made by master turner Lambert Xhrouet is a brass plate engraved with the arms of his employer, Charles Alexander de Lorraine, brother-in-law of Empress Maria Theresa, and her Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1744. Xhrouet also served as court turner to Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, who owned a lathe of similar design that is depicted in the famous Encyclopédie.
125. METMAR_191220_357.JPG: Artistic Interpretations of Time "The weight that drives the clock of commonwealth should be the force of a lively intellect." -- Daniel Caspar von Lohenstein, 17th century Clocks were perhaps the most marvelous technological achievements of the early modern period, and European rulers treasured them. As courts competed for technical supremacy, patrons encouraged innovations in their mechanical technology. As much display pieces and astronomical instruments as timekeepers, the most valued clocks expressed the advanced character of their interior mechanisms through splendidly decorated cases and complex dials. Self-moving machines stood for more than technical progress. Practitioners of the "new science" embraced clockwork metaphors for society, the self, and the universe. They linked astronomical clocks to notions of a divinely ordered cosmos that was reflected in human hierarchies. Clocks also served as allegories of rulership from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. A disciplined society ran with the regularity of a clock, and the devices had been associated with wisdom, temperance, and prudence -- virtues necessary for the ruler -- since the fifteenth century. Given these symbolic resonances, it is no wonder that princes commissioned elaborate clocks for their Kunstkammer collections.
126. METMAR_191220_359.JPG: Clock case ca. 1710, movement ca. 1760–70 Clockmaker: Franz Xavier Gegenreiner The play of textures on the case of this clock characterizes the commanding originality of Augsburg silversmith Johann Andreas Thelot, who became one of the city's most celebrated artisans. The reliefs are framed with gilded curtains to create stagelike scenes devoted to the goddess Venus at her toilette (top), Diana and three nymphs (right), Venus and Mars (bottom), and Vulcan and his consort, Venus (left). The small relief accentuating the base illustrates the four seasons, recalling the eternal passage of time. The quarter-striking movement was fitted in this astonishing case about fifty years after its production.
127. METMAR_191220_362.JPG: Astronomical table clock second quarter 17th century German, Augsburg With its various dials illustrating calendrical and astronomical data, this highly complicated clock reflected the outstanding education of its noble owner. A ruler's possession of precise technology, used to tell the time and trace the constellations, underlined his divine right to govern his subjects. Princely scenes of hunting -- within the openwork of the dome -- and the allegorical figures that weave around the case are as elegant as the intricate technological marvel within.
128. METMAR_191220_364.JPG: The Knight's Dream ca. 1650-1670 Antonio de Pereda This celebrated painting includes a timepiece similar to the clock on view nearby, reflecting the widespread fame of Augsburg clockmakers. The subject of the Baroque vanitas picture is the ephemerality of the abundant luxury on display, which can be enjoyed only until death reveals the emptiness of human thought and ambition symbolized by the skulls. The young knight may dream of the riches promised by a superior military or clerical career -- suggested by the crown, miter, and papal tiara -- but the clock emphasizes time's inescapable passage. The winged figure presents a cautionary banner that reads: "Eternally it stings, swiftly it flies, and it kills."
129. METMAR_191220_367.JPG: Automaton Clock in the Form of Diana on her Chariot ca. 1610 South German, probably Augsburg One specialty of Augsburg clockmakers was the combining of timepieces with silver sculpture to create automata. Diana, goddess of the moon and hunt, was a popular subject among European nobility because hunting was a privilege and a pastime of rulers. The two harnessed leopards drawing the chariot here refer to Diana's reputed ability to command wild animals. Video Automata played a role in drinking games at courtly banquets. The effects that can be seen and heard here -- the chimes sounding the quarter hour, the chariot's operation, the animals' action, and the steady movement of Diana's eyes -- are all generated by one mechanism inside the ebony base. When the contraption stops, the goddess shoots her arrow: the guest nearest its landing place must drain his or her cup of liquor.
130. METMAR_191220_370.JPG: Astronomical table clock 1568 Movement probably by Jeremias Metzger With its various dials illustrating calendrical and astronomical data, this highly complicated clock reflected the outstanding education of its noble owner. A ruler's possession of precise technology, used to tell the time and trace the constellations, underlined his divine right to govern his subjects. Princely scenes of hunting -- within the openwork of the dome -- and the allegorical figures that weave around the case are as elegant as the intricate technological marvel within.
131. METMAR_191220_372.JPG: Magic lantern clock 2nd half of the 17th century Matthias Gaill A small light placed inside this clock projected images painted on exchangeable glass slides onto a wall. The slides include portraits of Emperor Leopold I and his second wife, Claudia Felicitas, longtime friends of the clock's owner, Prince Paul I Esterházy; the clock thus offered a way for the prince to demonstrate his connection to the emperor. At night, the dial itself could be projected, making it possible to see the time from bed. "Zapplers" (from the German zappeln, "to fidget") have a pendulum that swings wildly in front of the dial.
132. METMAR_191220_375.JPG: Magic lantern clock 2nd half of the 17th century Matthias Gaill A small light placed inside this clock projected images painted on exchangeable glass slides onto a wall. The slides include portraits of Emperor Leopold I and his second wife, Claudia Felicitas, longtime friends of the clock's owner, Prince Paul I Esterházy; the clock thus offered a way for the prince to demonstrate his connection to the emperor. At night, the dial itself could be projected, making it possible to see the time from bed. "Zapplers" (from the German zappeln, "to fidget") have a pendulum that swings wildly in front of the dial.
133. METMAR_191220_377.JPG: The Clockmaker's Workshop 1610 After Jan van der Straet, called Stradanus In Stradanus's Clockmaker's Workshop, several figures perform different steps in the clockmaking process. * The most prominent figure, whose delicate lace collar suggests that he is a master clockmaker, presents the fruits of his workshop's labor to the viewer, as if to a potential buyer. The painting documents the close relation between commerce and manufacture: behind him another clockmaker, likely a journeyman, inspects watches suspended from the wall. Another man reaches beyond the canvas to complete his task, implying the continued space of the workshop. This didactic painting and the poetic Spanish painting nearby both include representations of clocks, but they treat the technology differently, a testament to the versatility of the clock as a subject for artistic representation.
134. METMAR_191220_379.JPG: (left) Clock-watch with sundial ca. 1605–10 Watchmaker: Jan Jansen Bockeltz Concealing a gilded brass sundial, encased in rock crystal, or studded with eighty-five rubies, these three watches exemplify the commodification of time into portable objects communicating great wealth, virtuoso craftsmanship, and the latest style. Their "invisible" clockworks were likened to the invisible powers understood to regulate the universe. The Dutch clock watch with sundial was designed to be admired from every angle. The French watch is distinguished by its difficult-to-produce cosses de pois (peapod) decoration. Transparent rock crystal -- then highly valued and used to enshrine religious relics -- elevated the miniaturized movement to a technical wonder. The ruby-covered watch by Nicolaus Rugendas, member of a prominent family of Augsburg clockmakers, is a refined example of the florid designs of Augsburg goldsmiths at the time.
135. METMAR_191220_381.JPG: Watch ca. 1650 Watchmaker: Pierre Vernede Concealing a gilded brass sundial, encased in rock crystal, or studded with eighty-five rubies, these three watches exemplify the commodification of time into portable objects communicating great wealth, virtuoso craftsmanship, and the latest style. Their "invisible" clockworks were likened to the invisible powers understood to regulate the universe. The Dutch clock watch with sundial was designed to be admired from every angle. The French watch is distinguished by its difficult-to-produce cosses de pois (peapod) decoration. Transparent rock crystal -- then highly valued and used to enshrine religious relics -- elevated the miniaturized movement to a technical wonder. The ruby-covered watch by Nicolaus Rugendas, member of a prominent family of Augsburg clockmakers, is a refined example of the florid designs of Augsburg goldsmiths at the time.
136. METMAR_191220_383.JPG: Musical Clock with Spinet and Organ ca. 1625 Veit Langenbucher German Each part of this marvel, a combination of clock, musical instrument, and automaton, would have added to its expense. Its production required the cooperation of several artisans. The clock's case is marked "EBEN," which the cabinetmaker's guild used to indicate real ebony (and not a cheaper substitute), and its corners are embellished with fine silver caryatids (female supporting ornaments). Clocks like this one -- the earliest surviving example of its type -- made it possible to enjoy recorded music at home. Video A multisensory entertainment for the noble classes, this piece has a clockwork mechanism that plays three jaunty original compositions (one of which can be heard here) on a spinet and an organ. It also sets in motion a cast of commedia dell'arte figures that dance in a circle or spin and jump on the hour. The mirrored panels behind them are positioned to create the illusion of a large ballroom; the trick is simple yet effective.
137. METMAR_191220_386.JPG: Musical Clock with Spinet and Organ ca. 1625 Veit Langenbucher German
138. METMAR_191220_389.JPG: Table clock in the form of an Imperial double eagle 1680–1690 Elias I. Kreittmayr the Elder As a powerful display piece at Forchtenstein Castle, this clock symbolized Prince Paul I Esterházy's position within the hierarchy of the Holy Roman Empire. The breast of the double-headed eagle is adorned with a clock dial encircled by the gilded collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, the order of knighthood headed by the Habsburg emperor. The crown, the scepter and sword, and the orb above the base reflect the imperial regalia. The Esterházy princes distinguished themselves in the defense of the empire's boundaries against Ottoman invasions.
139. METMAR_191220_392.JPG: Pietre Dure Night Clock 1704-1705 Case and hardstone mosaics by Giovanni Battista Foggini The Medici court in Renaissance Florence promoted the art of pietre dure. The sparkle of the multicolored semiprecious stones would not fade, even as the clock's movement indicated the passage of time through the darkness of night -- a vanitas symbol for the ephemerality of life. A major seventeenth-century advancement was the so-called wandering-hour dial. Illuminated Arabic numerals for the hour "wander" in an arc from left to right. The owner could read the clock in the dark, as a small oil lamp illuminated cutouts of roman numerals and pierced markings for fifteen-minute periods.
140. METMAR_191220_394.JPG: Two Spherical Clocks late 17th century Georg Seydell In spherical clocks like these, the body of the timepiece itself serves as the weight that drives it. To wind it, the ball is lifted upward. The striking mount balancing these two clocks refers to the hand of God, emerging from an exuberant gilded frame as if from the heavens to keep time in check. Although the clocks appear similar, each is the work of a different master. The larger was made by George Seydell, court clockmaker to the electors of Brandenburg from 1674 to 1688. The hour hand of the smaller one displays the Hesse coat of arms.
141. METMAR_191220_397.JPG: Musical Automaton Clock ca. 1777 Movement by Jan Carel Lambreghts Duke Charles Alexander of Lorraine, who bought this automaton clock in 1777, collected luxury objects made in his realm that demonstrated local technical advances. The self-moving components of this timepiece represent the height of Flemish invention in a fashionable Neoclassical style. Mechanically complex and visually impressive, this sparkling clock was a worthy addition to the duke's collection of timepieces and scientific instruments. Video The video nearby shows the movement of the dials for hours, minutes, and seconds; days of the month; and phases of the moon, as well as that of the seven dynamic design elements. The cross-of-Lorraine pendulum swings steadily over the main dial, underneath a dancing letter M. Above the calendar dial turns a Catherine wheel, while the four dragons supporting the obelisk flap their wings and spit pearls. Another Catherine wheel spins above the moon-phase dial, and the entire obelisk is topped by a rotating planetarium. The fourth dial shows the maker's signature.
142. METMAR_191220_398.JPG: Celestial globe with clockwork 1579 Gerhard Emmoser Emmoser, who served three emperors, created this globe for Rudolf II. The emperor displayed the scientific apparatus, which once rotated to chart the constellations, in his Kunstkammer. The stand ring's naturalistic rock formations may refer to Greek myth, which held that the spring of inspiration flowed wherever the winged Pegasus's hooves struck. Astronomy rested on knowledge of arithmetic and geometry, fields then considered "the wings of the human mind." This unprecedented fusion of elegant goldsmith work and extraordinarily complex mechanical technology reflects the hand of a great master.
143. METMAR_191220_401.JPG: Equation Clock 1591 Jost Bürgi This marvel is the first clock in history with a moon mechanism based on Nicolaus Copernicus's theory of the lunar orbit. It is also the only timepiece in the history of astronomy whose pictorial program reflects its astronomical readings and places those activities at a particular court. An astute patron could read the difference, or "equation," between the true and mean movements of the sun and moon from the clock's hands. The court clockmaker made it for Landgrave William IV of Hesse-Kassel, a learned patron who was considered to be among the most accomplished astronomers of the sixteenth century.
144. METMAR_191220_403.JPG: The Emperor's Monument Clock ca. 1570-1600 Attributed to the workshop of Wenzel Jamnitzer This timepiece depicts Holy Roman Emperor Charles V enthroned under a state baldachin, which holds the clockface. The six figural reliefs below include Apollo (god of sun and light), Venus, and Mars, all allusions to astrology. The clock would have required the collaboration of at least three specialized workshops: a clockmaker, a cabinetmaker, and a sculptor-goldsmith (possibly Wenzel Jamnitzer) to model the figures. The classical statuary, symmetrical ebony octagon, map of Habsburg territory, and precision timepiece join together to suggest the idealized orderly rule of Charles V.
145. METMAR_191220_406.JPG: The Search for Artificial Life "These [human] functions follow from the mere arrangement of the machine's organs every bit as naturally as the movements of a clock or other automaton follow from the arrangement of its counterweights and wheels." -- René Descartes, 1633 Displays of status and technological achievement were not limited to the Kunstkammer. Noble dynasties commissioned some marvels primarily to amuse attendees at courtly banquets, festivals, tournaments, and weddings, where they were incorporated into the dining setting in order to kindle lively discussion. The most marvelous of these technologies were automata, mechanized figures based on the same self-moving gear systems that powered clocks. Princes collected automata avidly, and brought them out of the Kunstkammer to delight guests by setting them in motion across the table. Seemingly driven by a divine hand yet wholly the product of their makers' skill, automata stimulated philosophical discussions on the human ability to create machines that mimic our movement or react intelligently to commands. Many theorists described God as the greatest of all clockmakers, who set the vast mechanism of the cosmos in motion. Debates circulated about how their use of clockwork to imitate life placed artisans on par with the divine. Automata contributed to the development of a mechanistic theory of human life popularized by thinkers such as René Descartes during the early Enlightenment.
146. METMAR_191220_409.JPG: Centerpiece in the Form of a Galley late 16th century Joseph Mayer As early as the fourteenth century, small silver ships marked the sovereign's place at the table during banquets, enclosing the cutlery and napkin to protect them from poisoning. Over the course of the sixteenth century, multifunctional trick vessels such as this one became popular. If a diner tried to drink from the blocked bow spout, the three deck cannons sprayed liquid onto his or her face -- to the delight of the assembled company. The only way to successfully drink from the vessel is through a cannon on the stern.
147. METMAR_191220_412.JPG: Table fountain with Neptune and the sea voyage of Bacchus ca. 1652/53 Melchior Gelb The fountain with Bacchus and Neptune was used to mix wine and water. Wine poured into the vat on Bacchus's head flowed through his body and into the small cask he straddles. From there it was released into the water-filled shell-shaped bowl with a lobster and Nereid. The other, more technologically ambitious fountain likely produced jets of water through air pressure, typical of a model first designed by the Greek mathematician and engineer Heron of Alexandria (1st century a.d.). Placed on the table, a fountain like this would mesmerize guests with its mysterious technology, known only to humanists and goldsmiths.
148. METMAR_191220_416.JPG: Fountain third quarter of the 16th century Austrian, possibly Innsbruck Bearing the coat of arms of the powerful Madruzzo family of Trento (on the base), this fountain was used to impress guests during courtly festivities. Portable despite its size, it likely spurted wine or water, in either a garden or banquet hall. At the top stands the hunter Actaeon midway through his transformation into a stag at the hands of the goddess Diana, the story of which is recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Video Pipes inside the bronze column would have provided liquid to the various spigots from a source hidden higher up, ingeniously employing gravity rather than a mechanical pump. This animation re-creates the sprays the fountain would have produced to delight and surprise noble passersby. The jets' exaggerated thinness and asymmetry, created by the placement of the spigots, are characteristic of the late sixteenth-century Mannerist style.
149. METMAR_191220_417.JPG: Model for operating four hydraulic pumps third quarter of the 18th century Italian, Florence A "water raising" machine, this piece is often described as a version of an invention Galileo patented in 1594. The rotating device at the center, known as an eccentric, is driven by a pair of horses harnessed to two rods. The mechanism was thus propelled by a horsepower of only two. It connects via four shafts to balances holding chains that reach down into wells. The turning of the eccentric moves the beams to activate four pumps (not shown) to draw water from the wells. The meticulous perspective marquetry by a Florentine artisan elevates this model to a collector's item fit for a ruler.
150. METMAR_191220_420.JPG: Automaton Clock with Bacchus Figure and Case late 16th century German, Augsburg Prince Paul I Esterházy personally led his guests through his Kunstkammer, operating lavish mechanical marvels like this one for their amazement. Once this curious conveyance is set in motion, the wine god toasts the astonished observers with his cup, rolls his eyes, and sticks out his tongue, while the birds on his head excitedly flap their wings. The maker synchronized the movements of Bacchus and the other figures to a chiming mechanism inside the chariot that marks the quarter hours. A separate drive propels the six-wheeled car forward on its own. The clock, which came to Forchtenstein Castle in the second half of the seventeenth century, still has its original traveling and storage case.
151. METMAR_191220_423.JPG: Automaton Clock with Bacchus Figure and Case late 16th century German, Augsburg Prince Paul I Esterházy personally led his guests through his Kunstkammer, operating lavish mechanical marvels like this one for their amazement. Once this curious conveyance is set in motion, the wine god toasts the astonished observers with his cup, rolls his eyes, and sticks out his tongue, while the birds on his head excitedly flap their wings. The maker synchronized the movements of Bacchus and the other figures to a chiming mechanism inside the chariot that marks the quarter hours. A separate drive propels the six-wheeled car forward on its own. The clock, which came to Forchtenstein Castle in the second half of the seventeenth century, still has its original traveling and storage case.
152. METMAR_191220_425.JPG: Miraculous Writing Machine 1760 Friedrich von Knaus Presented to Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna in 1760, this automaton was made at the height of the "century of writing." Written communication connected scientists, dignitaries, scholars, and artists across long distances, and the act of writing was celebrated in every form. This piece is the last in a series of increasingly complicated ones that Friedrich von Knaus produced during his tenure as Austrian court machinist; he presented other examples to dignitaries such as the French king Louis XV and Duke Charles Alexander of Lorraine. Video The machine writes through the hand of the small statuette seated at its top, one of the first mechanical writing figures in human form. The video nearby shows the mechanisms inside the sphere that produce its precise movements. Up to 107 words can be preprogrammed by the arrangement of pegs on a barrel. The figure can also be set via a hand-worked control to appear to write from dictation; this technology that presaged the first typewriter.
153. METMAR_191220_428.JPG: Turtle Automaton with Neptune as Vintner 1626 Leodegar Grimaldo Leodegar Grimaldo created amusements that merged natural materials and man-made sculpture. This hybrid was a wedding present from Eberhard III, Duke of Württemberg, to a courtier in 1631. It would have scuttled across a table to deliver wine to a guest, who was then obliged to empty the cup shaped like a pack on Neptune's back before winding the piece up and setting it on its way toward another guest.
154. METMAR_191220_429.JPG: The Cittern Player Automaton first half of the 17th century South German (?) Cups and automata like these two played a role in the drinking games popular during the Renaissance. The wide skirt of the alabaster figure turns into a cup when inverted; the contents had to be gulped down before the vessel could be placed back on the table. This form was later adapted to automata that could shoot arrows, point, or -- as in this example -- simply stop in front of a guest. Depending on the rules of the game, the guest would then be required to redeem a pledge or deliver a clever toast, in either case emptying his or her cup. Maiden Cup ca. 1580 Austrian, Tyrol Cups and automata like these two played a role in the drinking games popular during the Renaissance. The wide skirt of the alabaster figure turns into a cup when inverted; the contents had to be gulped down before the vessel could be placed back on the table. This form was later adapted to automata that could could shoot arrows, point, or -- as in this example -- simply stop in front of a guest. Depending on the rules of the game, the guest would then be required to redeem a pledge or deliver a clever toast, in either case emptying his or her cup.
155. METMAR_191220_432.JPG: Automaton in the Form of a Crayfish ca. 1590 Hans Schlottheim Automata that imitated living creatures through miniaturized clockwork movements -- the ultimate expression of technological expertise -- were among the most popular Kunstkammer collectibles. An uncommonly minuscule movement propels the spider created by Tobias Reichel, clockmaker to the Dresden court. The crayfish automaton, which crawls forward, was one of a pair by Hans Schlottheim, a celebrated maker of automata in his era (the other crayfish, destroyed in 1945, crawled backward). Both animals here were originally painted in naturalistic colors.
156. METMAR_191220_434.JPG: Automaton in the form of a spider before 1604 Tobias Reichel Automata that imitated living creatures through miniaturized clockwork movements -- the ultimate expression of technological expertise -- were among the most popular Kunstkammer collectibles. An uncommonly minuscule movement propels the spider created by Tobias Reichel, clockmaker to the Dresden court. The crayfish automaton, which crawls forward, was one of a pair by Hans Schlottheim, a celebrated maker of automata in his era (the other crayfish, destroyed in 1945, crawled backward). Both animals here were originally painted in naturalistic colors.
157. METMAR_191220_441.JPG: Automaton clock in the form of Urania ca. 1620–30 Paullus Schiller German The muse of astrology and symbol of love, Urania, reclines atop the ebonized case, which hides a winding key in a drawer on the right side. She turns her head at the hour and lifts her pointer toward a horizontal dial mounted on a sphere. The movement's refinement would have invited viewers to inspect it closely, and small marvels like this appeared both as table decorations and in the Kunstkammer. Urania is an appropriate subject for an automaton made in Nuremberg, a city that already had an astronomical observatory at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
158. METMAR_191220_442.JPG: Automaton in the form of Diana and the stag ca. 1620 Joachim Friess This automaton was prized, though not unique; other versions survive, all targeted at the wealthiest clientele. A windup mechanism moves the group forward on hidden wheels, vibrating it in a lifelike way. Removing the stag's head reveals two drinking vessels. When the piece stopped, the nearest guest had to lift the creature off its base and empty it. The powerful Habsburg family bolstered their uneasy truce with the infringing Ottoman Empire through sizable gifts of automata like this.
159. METMAR_191220_447.JPG: Automaton Clock with Pacing Lion ca. 1619 Daniel Lotter This royal animal with its gilded mane paces majestically on an ebony base. Originally, a mechanism connected to a quarter- and hour-striking movement caused the lion's eyes to roll, its jaw to open, and its tongue to stick out -- no doubt to the owner's enchantment. The veneer bears the Augsburg cabinetmakers' guild's mark "eben," a guarantee of real ebony, a valuable tropical wood. The lion's form was influenced by slightly earlier bronze statuettes made in Florence.
160. METMAR_191220_453.JPG: The Moving Monk ca. 1550 attributed to Juanelo Turriano Though its origins are shrouded in mystery, one legend proposes that this marvel was made after a relic of the Franciscan brother Diego de Alcalá miraculously cured the young Spanish prince Don Carlos. The prince's father, Philip II, vowed "a miracle for a miracle" and commissioned this automaton representing the monk, who was canonized as a saint (San Diego, namesake of the California city). The king's comparison of clockwork to a miracle references the contest between human clockmakers and the divine, a popular concept in the Renaissance. Video Sensitively carved and painted in human likeness, the monk figure walks slowly and steadily. He beats his chest in penitence and regularly lifts his left hand toward his lips. As suggested by the video nearby, the figure once wore the robes of a Franciscan friar and probably kissed a miniature cross on a rosary (now lost).
161. METMAR_191220_456.JPG: Mechanical painting with scene changes 1710 Attributed to Antoine Watteau This mechanical marvel bears a dedication to the eldest son of King Louis XIV of France, signed with the name of celebrated French painter Antoine Watteau. It belongs to a tradition of artworks equipped with scenes that changed to surprise viewers. The king collected moving paintings of this type, called tableaux changeants. The masquerade ball composition is pierced with six openings. Mounted behind it are six toothed wheels that can rotate via a clockwork mechanism to reveal different scenes of musicians, dancers, and gamblers. Watteau is known for his depictions of figures in aristocratic dress frolicking in lush imaginary settings of seemingly everlasting festivity, a theme known as the fête galante.
162. METMAR_191220_460.JPG: Mechanical painting with scene changes 1710 Attributed to Antoine Watteau This mechanical marvel bears a dedication to the eldest son of King Louis XIV of France, signed with the name of celebrated French painter Antoine Watteau. It belongs to a tradition of artworks equipped with scenes that changed to surprise viewers. The king collected moving paintings of this type, called tableaux changeants. The masquerade ball composition is pierced with six openings. Mounted behind it are six toothed wheels that can rotate via a clockwork mechanism to reveal different scenes of musicians, dancers, and gamblers. Watteau is known for his depictions of figures in aristocratic dress frolicking in lush imaginary settings of seemingly everlasting festivity, a theme known as the fête galante.
163. METMAR_191220_461.JPG: Animated Painting of Saint-Ouen 1759 French This idyllic image of Saint-Ouen is a tableau animé (animated painting); the format was fashionable among French aristocrats of the eighteenth century. The painting was likely a jewel in the collection of Madame de Pompadour, mistress of King Louis XV. Her coat of arms, a tower, adorns the original carved, gilded, and silvered frame, a splendid work of art in its own right. Applied figures in the fore- and middle ground -- laundresses, anglers, and boats -- can move across the surface of the painting, powered by a hidden mechanism.
164. METMAR_191220_464.JPG: Inventions That Paved the Way "If we choose to call the performer [The Chess Player] a pure machine we must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond all comparison, the most wonderful of the inventions of mankind." -- Edgar Allan Poe, 1836 The innovations displayed in the collections and on the tables of Renaissance and Baroque Europe evolved into life-size humanoid automata built at the end of the eighteenth century. As they became increasingly complex, these machines earned a new name: androids. Early androids surprised courtly audiences with their seemingly perfect simulations of human movement and thought. Considered the forerunners of the modern computer, the cutting-edge technologies that produced these mysterious effects would soon be harnessed in the Industrial Revolution, generating great shifts in the way we live and work. The positive connotations associated with technological progress in the Renaissance endured through the centuries to inflect the present day. While scientific instruments and automata no longer carry the same prestige, their spiritual successors -- the high-end cars, handheld artificial intelligence, and luxury electronics dreamed up by today's scientists, artisans, and engineers -- command a level of respect that keeps alive a drive toward creativity and innovation.
165. METMAR_191220_467.JPG: The Draughtsman-Writer ca. 1800 Henry Maillardet Androids capable of writing and drawing, which embodied Enlightenment ideas about links between mechanical and human action, continue to inspire poets, artists, and engineers to this day. This creation became the basis for Brian Selznick's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), which Martin Scorsese adapted into the award-winning film Hugo (2011). Long a mystery, the android's maker was revealed during restoration in the twentieth century; when the clockwork motor is set in motion, the figure signs his drawing "the automaton of Maillardet." Video Maillardet hid the mechanics of his lifelike Draughtsman-Writer, a seamless blend of art and science, in a * cabinet rather than in the figure. This allowed for larger machinery and greater memory than in earlier efforts: an unprecedented three poems and four drawings are translated by the action of the figure, through a technology that foretold the computer.
166. METMAR_191220_468.JPG: The Draughtsman-Writer ca. 1800 Henry Maillardet
167. METMAR_191220_471.JPG: The Draughtsman-Writer ca. 1800 Henry Maillardet
168. METMAR_191220_474.JPG: Reproduction of the Chess Player (The Turk) original: ca. 1769; reproduction: 1975-2005 Original: Austrian, Vienna; reproduction: Los Angeles Touted as an android that could defeat chess masters, Wolfgang von Kempelen's famed illusion debuted at the court of Empress Maria Theresa during wedding celebrations for her daughter in 1769. Over the course of the eighteenth century, the chess player (known in its time as The Turk for its costume) won games against Catherine the Great and Benjamin Franklin. When Napoléon Bonaparte tried to cheat, it wiped all the pieces from the board. The mysterious machine sparked discussions of the possibilities and limits of artificial intelligence, and it inspired the development of the power loom, the telephone, and the computer. The original and its secrets were destroyed in a fire in 1854. Video The subject of more than eight hundred publications attempting to uncover its secrets, Kempelen's illusion also inspired a 1927 silent movie, The Chess Player, directed by Raymond Bernard. In the sequence shown here, the inventor presents his creation at court. The year of its release, this early science-fiction drama attracted more attention than Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a now-legendary film that also involves an android.
169. METMAR_191220_479.JPG: Reproduction of the Chess Player (The Turk) original: ca. 1769; reproduction: 1975-2005 Original: Austrian, Vienna; reproduction: Los Angeles
170. METMAR_191220_483.JPG: Reproduction of the Chess Player (The Turk) original: ca. 1769; reproduction: 1975-2005 Original: Austrian, Vienna; reproduction: Los Angeles
171. METMAR_191220_485.JPG: Reproduction of the Chess Player (The Turk) original: ca. 1769; reproduction: 1975-2005 Original: Austrian, Vienna; reproduction: Los Angeles
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