Dresden Conference: The one with Horse Blood and the Hunt

Can't resist this mirror

So this is it. The concluding session of the Dresden Conference on Cabinets of Curiosity. That two day event has provided a wealth of material, as well as making me think about the most extraordinary things. On reflection, the last three sessions were far more controversial than I originally thought; death and colonialism; classifying the unclassifiable; and this final session, which amongst other issues, discussed the blurring of boundaries regarding human and animals. I've combined Marion Endt-Jones and Sarah Wade's talks because they are relevant for my work, and they both used the Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature as a case study.

As Donna Roberts had already noted, 'cabinets of curiosity' have been the topic of many shows to greater and lesser critical success. Marion Endt-Jones suggested we were in a new age of curiosity, citing a raft of shows, from the Manchester coral show, various European exhibitions and the growth in alternative wunder- museums. She suggests that this revival is not just inspired by surreal art but a wholesale 'questioning of institutions'. It is also a reaction to the corporate nature of the white cube, an inevitable and long overdue rethink of ubiquitous bland, open, unnatural, cold galleries.

An unknown V&A Cabinet - some thoughts

I'm on the cusp of handing in my dissertation and to both my delight and dismay, I'm still finding potentially relevant interesting additions. As I explained to the lovely assistant curator at the V&A last week, it's as if the bench has provided the key to many doors and I'm being invited in to explore. Two items have come to light this week and I wanted to  quickly get some thoughts down on paper. The first is related to my V&A visit, and the second is a Jost Amman woodcut which I have just discovered. I will be focusing on the first below.

On Thursday afternoon we went down to the old post office which serves as the storage for one of the most interesting museum collections in London. As we were issued security passes, the AC was there waiting to escort us upstairs to a massive lumber room with the most interesting rolling shelves contents I've ever seen. As she identified the right shelf, we looked around us, taking in the stag horn mirror, a golden bed stead, 1950s sofas, and various interesting shapes covered in white dust sheets. Like an attic of sleeping beauties, waiting for a visit from someone who knows where to find them.

Hunting and the Wire Drawing Bench

First half of the panel

The Ore Mountains were not only central to Saxony because of their seams of wealth, but they also provided a hunting environment rich in game, fowl and fish. Scholars are unanimous in their commentary that for the highest echelons of society, hunting, hawking and angling as sports were an integral part of European culture, and was for some, a consuming obsession.[1] If Charles Bergman is to be believed, hunting played a part in the creation of nations; ‘royalty asserted their rights to the ownership of the forests of their countries and the hunt was closely associated with the assertion of national control by European monarchs over their lands and people’.[2] 

Some notes on identification: Ruta graveolens and Elector August

I'm currently looking at details which is my favourite part of art; looking for any clues to build up a better idea of what is going on. This little section concerns a mysterious procession of people towards a stunning 16th century view of Dresden.

The third and final procession of the bench is more open to interpretation than the previous two. However I suggest that this is August returning from a day’s hunting, and present the following reasons. Firstly, his position as riding ahead of the group, which was standard court etiquette, as befitted a man of high status. Secondly, his attire. His clothes initially do not appear overly elaborate, yet his long cloak has a beautifully stiffened collar and a silver chain is fastened around his shoulders by a rosette or other shape. A lace collar peeps out from underneath it. In comparison to the hunters in the various tableaux, he is extremely well dressed for riding in the forest.

More on the bench: Hunting for a direction

What the heck is it?

What I am about to describe has never been done so completely in English, as far as I know. The images were afforded a mere quarter of a paragraph in Gunther Heine's 1990 article about the bench. I can't say with the same surety say that it hasn't been done in French or German, but if it has, I haven't yet found it. Given my focus on geography of art, the landscape images were demanding that I take a closer look so I took a flying visit to the Museum of the Renaissance in Ecouen, to look at the those images specifically. This is what I constructed in transit so it's rough and ready.

I need to orientate you so you can piece together a map of the bench in your head. Imagine you are standing at one short end of it, looking all the way down towards the good light and the window. That illuminated end is the end with the image of the man in his workshop and the elaborate coat of arms of the Elector of Saxony. But you're not there yet, you see the monogrammed AM in the landscape. Crouch down and move to the right. Underneath the long jousting tableau, which you've already admired, there is the first square picture. There are four of these, two either side of the end pieces.