Cabinets of Curiosities

The weird and wonderful history behind private collections that became the first museums

- Harry Pearson

In the summer of 1634, an exhibition was held in a large house in Lambeth, London. It would have a major impact on the cultural life of England, and on cities far beyond our shores. It would set a fashion, in time becoming an institution. It would open up education to the masses, in much the same way the invention of the printing press had done two centuries earlier.

The exhibition was organised by John Tradescant. It offered the public the chance to view his collection, a wide-ranging selection of curious and fascinating objects—animal, vegetable and mineral—from all around the world.

One visitor summed up the amazement of what became known as "The Ark". Here was a place, he said, “Where a man might in one daye behold…more curiosities than hee would see if hee spent all his lifetime in Travell”.

Tradescant’s collection was part of a Europe-wide craze that had begun during the Renaissance. The Ark was a Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities. Tsar of Russia Peter the Great, Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, Archduke of Austria Ferdinand II, and Augustus the Strong of Saxony all had collections that matched or exceeded Tradescant's Ark in size.

But there was an important difference, as Emily Fuggles, curator of the Tradescant Ark Gallery at the Garden Museum, London, explains. “Until that point the Wunderkammer were the private collections of nobility and kings. John Tradescant and his son were quite different. They were professional gardeners. They threw their collection open to the public. The other great cabinets of curiosities were seen only by the rich and powerful. Tradescant’s Ark was seen by anybody who could pay the entrance fee.”