Here researchers will find a tabular overview of key sources for the Brandenburg-Prussian Kunstkammer (and its predecessor and successor institutions), some of which (see list below) are digitized and/or supplemented with transcriptions (working drafts) and detailed object information. The source IDs were assigned in conjunction with the book publication associated with this project.
The sources for the Berlin Kunstkammer consist of inventories, travel reports, collection guidebooks, photographs, and databases, which are housed in, or available through, various archives and libraries in Berlin as well as other institutions in Germany. The Kunstkammer objects studied in the research environment were investigated using the sources examined in the project. Numerous objects are still preserved in the collections of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin or have been integrated into the holdings of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin; others are now in the collection of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. However, since many of the objects now survive only in historical sources, the research environment focuses on a text-based reconstruction of the holdings to enable users to at least study them virtually and by time period. Each source thus provides an individual view of the collection and its objects while at the same time constituting an archaeological layer of sorts.
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In the source- and text-based reconstruction of the holdings, the objects have been identified and linked throughout the various sources. The systematic analysis of a defined and extensively documented period makes it possible to precisely trace the dynamics of the collection (especially the holdings of naturalia) from 1668 to 1793 with regard to location, accession, deaccession, and use. The greater the number of sources for an object, the more it was possible to interpret contradictory or incomplete information. Such an approach is a desideratum for the remaining collection holdings as well as for the more detailed analysis of the nineteenth-century archival records, work that came to a temporary end with the Kunstkammer guide of 1805 in this phase of the project.
The sources were transcribed in part by the project team and by participants in the Transcription Workshop of the Museum für Naturkunde, a citizen science symposium in which handwritten documents are transcribed in conjunction with science history projects of the museum.
Archival Sources Analyzed in Detail and their Current Status
Inventory of the Kunstkammer. Objects from Inventar 1605 are already recorded here; the document thus represents the oldest surviving inventory of the Kunstkammer, albeit without the textiles included in 1605. Current status: digitized.
Inventory of the Kunstkammer “im Gewelbe” (“in the vault”), a repository in the Berlin Palace; the majority of the holdings (ca. 1900 objects) were lost in the Thirty Years’ War. Current status: transcribed and digitized (fols. 13r–43v).
Catalogue of the library in the apothecary wing of the Berlin Palace, compiled by Johann Raue in 1668. Includes subsequent identification of the naturalia transferred to the Kunstkammer in 1680. Current status: transcribed and digitized; detailed object information (fols. 144r–46r). The entries are based on Ursula Winter’s Die Handschriften der Churfürstlichen Bibliothek zu Cölln an der Spree – Johann Raues Katalog von 1668 (2018).
Inventory of the “Kunstsachen und raritäten” (“art objects and curiosities”) in the Kunstkammer in the apothecary wing under Elector Friedrich Wilhelm. Originally compiled by Christian Albrecht Kunckel in 1685; copied with notes regarding condition and availability in conjunction with the audit of the collection by Christoph Ungelter in 1688.
List of mathematical instruments from 1688. It forms a unit together with the copy of “Geschnitzte und gedrechselte Kunstsachen” and “Naturalien.” Current status: transcribed and digitized; detailed object information (fols. 162r–166v).
List of the objects contributed to the Kunstkammer by Friedrich III/I, with notes on acquisition in many cases. The list was compiled by Christoph Ungelter between 1688 and 1692. Current status: transcribed and digitized; detailed object information (fols. 53r–78v).
Contains invoices, lists, and letters, and the like regarding accessions and handcrafted works in the Kunstkammer collected by Christoph Ungelter from 1688 to 1693. Current status: digitized; partially transcribed (fols. 1r–3v; fols. 20r–21v)
This inventory reflects the holdings of the Kunstkammer after Friedrich III/I had caused dispersed naturalia and art objects to be assembled in the Kunstkammer and the administrator Christoph Ungelter had died in 1693. His successor Lorenz Beger was commissioned to compile a new list of the objects. The inventory contains over 800 object entries, including many of those from Inventar 1685/1688, Inventar 1688a, and Eingangsbuch 1688/1692a, which were subdivided into numerous collection categories. Current status: transcribed and digitized; detailed object information (pp. 1–254)
Description of the electoral library, armory, and arsenal entitled Eine akademische Ferienreise von Rostock bis Königsberg im Jahre 1694 (An Academic Holiday Trip from Rostock to Königsberg in 1694). The text was edited and published in 1905 by Gustav Kohfeld. The source also mentions some objects that entered the Kunstkammer only in the eighteenth century. Current status: print; digitized; detailed object information for selected passages (pp. 45–51).
This description, which was composed under the title “Berlin und sein Hof im Jahre 1696. Reiseerinnerungen des Fra Alessandro Bichi aus Siena” (“Berlin and Its Court in 1696: Travel Memoirs of Fra Alessandro Bichi of Siena”) and published in 1891 in the journal Die Grenzboten. Zeitschrift für Politik, Literatur und Kunst, gives an impression of the library and Kunstkammer and mentions selected objects. Current status: print; digitized; detailed object information for selected passages (p. 27).
Description of the Kunstkammer from 1706, written during the journey of Count Si(e)gmund Albrecht von Rindsmaul from Vienna to the Netherlands in the company of Freiherr Ferdinand von Mallenstein and Dr. Böklin.
Description of the Kunstkammer from 1708 by an unknown Venetian. The work conveys a vivid impression of the collection rooms in the Schlüter palace and mentions examples of objects. In 1999, the Italian source was edited, translated into German, and published with commentary by Irene Schrattenecker under the title Eine deutsche Reise Anno 1708 (A German Journey in the Year 1708). Current status: print; transcribed; detailed object information for selected passages (pp. 121–23).
This description of the Kunstkammer and library, based on a visit on February 27, 1713, was composed by Wolff Bernhard von Tschirnhaus under the title Model eines Academie- und Reise-Journals (Model of an Academy and Travel Journal) and published in 1727 as an appendix to the travel writings of his relative Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. It contains a list of sights worth seeing at the end of the era of Friedrich I. As such, it established a canon that served as a model for visitors’ accounts into the middle part of the century (cf.
The anonymous Beschreibung Der in der Königlichen Preuß. Residenz Berlin befindlichen Kunst- und Rüst-Cammer nebst denen Lust-Häussern (Description of the Art Cabinet and Armory of the Royal Prussian Residence in Berlin along with the Summer Houses) was written during the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm I, probably in the 1720s or 30s. It consists of a numbered list of nearly 180 noteworthy objects, organized according to room. Current status: digitized and transcribed; detailed object information (fols. 35r–40v).
Copy of the list of naturalia in the Kunstkammer, made in late 1734 or early 1735. From fol. 1r to 8v (up to no. 155) it is identical with Inventar 1694, aside from occasional abbreviations or copyist’s errors. The remaining pages record the holdings in the form of an accession list up to 1734. The document (or the copy) was created in conjunction with the transfer of naturalia to the Academy of Sciences; objects marked with an “x” were to remain in the Kunstkammer.
In his Anmerckungen derer Auf meiner Sächsischen Reysse gesehenen Merckwürdigkeiten (Notes on the Remarkable Things Seen on my Trip to Saxony), the Strasbourg organ builder Johann Andreas Silbermann describes his visit to the library and Kunstkammer in 1741. His account also provides insight into touring practices of the time. Current status: digitized and transcribed; detailed object information (fols. 104v–113r).
The text, entitled Specification derer Sachen so auf der Königl. Preuß. Kunst Cammer zu Berlin befindl. sein (Description of the Things Located in the Royal Prussian Kunstkammer in Berlin), was written between 1742 and 1752 as part of a larger work on “Curiositeten” (“curiosities”) in Berlin. Subdivided according to rooms, it constitutes the first of four parts, with Part 2 devoted to the library, Part 3 to the armory, and Part 4 to the population of Berlin.
Description of the Kunstkammer in context of the palace, published in 1756 by Gottfried Küster, director of the Friedrichswerdersches Gymnasium, as the third part of the four-volume series Altes und Neues Berlin (Parts 1 and 2 published together with Johann Christoph Müller). The description of the location and furnishings of the Kunstkammer is based on older sources, and a number of objects that had long since been removed after 1735 are still mentioned. Current status: print; transcribed; detailed object information (pp. 18–20, 539–50).
Description of the Kunstkammer and Antiquities Cabinet in the third edition of the Beschreibung der königlichen Residenzstädte Berlin und Potsdam […] (Description of the Royal Residence Cities of Berlin and Potsdam […]) by the publisher and author Friedrich Nicolai. The city guide also describes the other public and some private collections in Berlin. Current status: print; transcribed; detailed object information (pp. 791–802).
List of the naturalia in the Kunstkammer in 1793, shortly before Jean Henry was installed as warden of the Art and Medals Cabinet; part of the Verzeichnis derer in dem Königl[ichen] Kunst und Naturalien Cabinet befindl[ichen] Sachen 1793 in Abschrift (Register of Objects Present in the Royal Art and Naturalia Cabinet in 1793, Transcribed). It derives its wording from the inventory of 1735 and lists seventy objects. Current status: transcribed; detailed object information (pp. 301–3).
Guidebook written by Jean Henry and entitled Allgemeines Verzeichniss des Königlichen Kunst-, Naturhistorischen und Antiken-Museums (General Catalogue of the Royal Art, Natural-Historical, and Antiquities Museum). It offers insight into the systematic subdivision of the collection and mentions particular highlights and larger collection complexes such as mollusks, specifying their number.
Information on around thirty taxidermy birds, compiled from the register of the bird collection of the Zoologisches Museums prepared by Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger in May 1812. The partial information recorded here relates to taxidermy birds that still survive to this day. The bird collection of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin contains around thirty objects that are identified in labels and catalogue entries as having come from the Kunstkammer. The other Kunstkammer birds are no longer present, having been sold, destroyed during World War II, or otherwise lost.
In addition to accession catalogues, since the 1850s the Zoologisches Museum of the university in Berlin has kept collection catalogues known as “Generalkataloge” (General Catalogues). Here for the first time, all objects were assigned inventory numbers that are still used today. The Generalkatalog Mammalia also lists the taxidermy mammals from the Kunstkammer that were still present in the mid-nineteenth century and have been catalogued in WissKI.
Supporting Libraries and Archives
