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A Window on Nature and Art

Schnabel eines Rhinozerosvogel

A Historical Study of the Brandenburg-Prussian Kunstkammer

The natural and man-made objects collected in the Brandenburg-Prussian Kunstkammer are among the oldest surviving items of Berlin’s current museum collections. For the first time, the project reassembles the Kunstkammer collection that was distributed across multiple specialized museums and the university in the 19th century. In cooperation with the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz and funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) the project investigates the Kunstkammer in all its complexity by looking at the biographies of individual objects, and opening praxeological perspectives on the collection.

Project results

Events

Event series: "Prisma Kunstkammer: Werkstattgespräche zu Berliner Sammlungsobjekten"

Courtly hunts and hunting objects in the Berlin Kunstkammer
interdisciplinary workshop online
23 November 2020 (non-public event)
speakers:
Dr. Kathrin Külow (Jagdschloss Grunewald, SPSG Berlin) 
Dr. Nadir Weber (SNFS Ambizione Fellow, University of Bern/Humboldt University Berlin)
Dr. des. Meike Knittel (Museum of Natural History Berlin) 
Dr. Diana Stört (Museum of Natural History Berlin)

Collecting and Publishing Nature around 1800
bilingual event at the experimental field of the Museums für Naturkunde
15 October 2019
speakers:
Dr. des. Meike Knittel (Museum für Naturkunde): Naturkundliches Sammeln in Berlin um 1800
Didi Rosa van Trijp (Universität Leiden): Bloch’s Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische: The Functions of a Fish Book

Cooperation Partners

The research project is carried out in cooperation with the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

Funding

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).