Worldview and knowledge around 1600
Worldview and Knowledge around 1600 is the title of a permanent exhibition in the Residenzschloss in Dresden , which opened on March 19, 2016 on the 1st floor of the Georgenbau , in the former private living quarters of the Electors. It shows various collection items and works of art from the late Renaissance from the Dresden Kunstkammer , which were brought together by the Saxon Elector August and set up in the Dresden Palace under his son, Christian I of Saxony (1560–1591).
The exhibition is presented on 600 square meters in seven rooms and is divided into the following areas:
- Room 1: The elector as artifex .
It is dedicated to the Elector August (1526–1586), the founder of the Kunstkammer. He had collected numerous instruments in the attic of the west wing of the Dresden Residenzschloss and in 1572 employed a court official to look after them. The elector is presented as an “artifex”, ie as an artist and craftsman who has also been involved in manual work. His son Christian I converted the electoral work area into a display collection dedicated to the memory of his father, which was also accessible to visitors. Numerous tools that were collected in the former Dresden art chamber are on display. These are gardening tools, goldsmiths and carpenters tools as well as tools for iron working (e.g. the so-called pry tools).
- Room 2: The order of things.
Furniture from the Kunstgewerbemuseum is on display (e.g. two richly decorated art cabinets with numerous compartments, but without content, as well as two Augsburg cabinets, including the so-called table cabinet for a princess with writing implements, sewing kits and a pharmacy).
- Room 3: play worlds
Various games, a large mother-of-pearl gaming table, six board game cassettes made of precious materials, musical instruments and a sideboard with chairs from the New Stable (now Johanneum) for drinking bouts are shown here.
- Room 4: Combination weapons
These are weapons with several functions in one piece, for example polearms combined with firearms, rapiers with clocks, pistons with firearms, stick rapiers and battle hammers with spring blades. These lavishly equipped weapons, in which the highly specialized armouring technique is recognizable, were purely collector's and show pieces. Two showcases with technically and historically interesting pistols form the prelude to the rifle gallery, which will be set up again in the adjoining long corridor (between Georgenbau and Johanneum ) by 2018 .
- Room 5: The networking of the world.
Here attention is drawn to the discovery and conquest of foreign continents, from which strange materials, strange animals, treasures and curiosities reached Europe, which also found their way into the Kunstkammer. Exotic materials are shown in unprocessed and artistically processed form. You can see the horn of the legendary unicorn (actually a narwhal tooth), the head extension of a sawtooth ray (rostrum) and vessels made of rock crystal , ivory , coconut and ostrich eggs.
- Room 6: The Protestant Elector.
This section includes liturgical items from the Reformation period. The oak door (1556), the damaged baptismal font, precious silver vessels and other original pieces of equipment from the Dresden castle chapel refer to the commitment of the Saxon electors to the Lutheran Reformation .
- Room 7: Studiolo (for special exhibitions).
Here z. Z. (2016) shows engravings from the series “Nova Reperta” by Jan van der Straet (1523–1605), which refer to important post-ancient inventions.
Individual evidence
- ↑ World view and knowledge around 1600 - SKD leaflet, 2016
- ↑ Lisa Werner-Art: Weltsicht und Wissen - New permanent exhibition in the Dresden Residenzschloss, DNN No. 66, from March 18, 2016, p. 9