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Stobaeus's Cabinet of Curiosity: Emotions, “Curiosa” and Collecting

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Stobaeus's Cabinet of Curiosity: Emotions, “Curiosa” and Collecting workshop Stobaeus’s Cabinet of Curiosity: Emotions, “Curiosa” and Collecting in Early Modern Sweden and Beyond Date: 4–6 October 2017 This is the first of a series of three thematic workshops Time: 9am–5pm that form part of the project ‘Beyond curiosity and Venue: Lund University, Lund, Sweden wonder – understanding the Museum Stobaeanum’ funded by the Kungl. Vitterhetsakademien and the Enquiries: [email protected] Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (2017–2019). The workshop is or [email protected] co-sponsored by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE) and the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII). This first workshop will focus on the historical and cultural background of early modern collecting in Sweden and Scandinavia. Scientific inquiry and object collecting are not purely rational endeavours but – like most social actions – they involve emotional judgments and motivations. Why were particular objects especially desired and sought after? How were they displayed and interacted with? What attitudes and affective networks marked the exchanges between collectors – be they Swedish ministers, consuls, East India merchants or scientists – and local people? How did Stobaeus and other collectors perceive their collections? These are the questions we wish to pursue in the workshop. The format of the workshop consists of a public lecture on day one, Images: followed by two days of presentations and discussions by research team Kilian Stobaeus (1690-1742), painting by K.P. members and invited speakers. The aim is to understand Stobaeus’s Mörth, Historiska Museet Lund. collecting as a scientific and emotional practice by taking a broader look at Object from the Stobaeus collection, small scales the early modern collecting practices in Sweden and Scandinavia. from China (18th century), Historiska Museet Lund. DAY ONE: WEDNESDAY 4 OCTOBER 2017 LUHM, KRAFTS TORG 1, KYRKOSALEN 15.00–16.00 Guided tour in the cabinet of curiosities (for speakers only) 16.00–17.00 Public lecture by Mårten Snickare (Stockholm University): ‘Collecting and Colonisation: On Objects and “Worldmaking” in Early Modern Sweden’ Small Reception at LUHM DAY TWO: THURSDAY 5 OCTOBER 2017 LUX, HELGONAVÄGEN 3, ROOM B152 SCIENCE, PASSIONS AND OBJECT COLLECTIONS IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD 9.30–10.00 Jacqueline Van Gent and Magdalena Naum: Short introduction to set the agenda and themes of the workshop. 10.00–10.30 Lærke Maria Andersen Funder (Aarhus University), ‘“Let us work together so that academics may replace persuasion with proof, discussion with examination, belief with knowledge”: Passion and Ideology in Collecting – The Case of Ole Worm’. 10.30–11.00 Mattias Ekman (Oslo University), ‘Collecting and Arrangements of Knowledge in the Time of Stobaeus: Theory and Context’. 11.00–11.30 Coffee and discussion 11.30–12.00 Håkan Håkanson (Lund University), ‘Wonders of Nature and Wonders of God: Religion, Natural Philosophy and Early Modern Wunderkammern’. 12.00–12.30 Hanna Hodacs (Dalarna University), ‘Consuming Natural History: Taxonomy, Economy and Materiality in Late Eighteenth- Century Northwest Europe’. 12.30–13.00 Discussion 13.00–14.30 Lunch 14.30–15.00 Valdemar Hedelykke Grambye (University of Southern Denmark), ‘Antiquarian Networks: The Beginning of a Typology. The Collecting of the Bircherod Dynasty (1670–1730)’ 15.00–15.30 Matthiew Norris (Lund University), ‘Conquering Time: Antiquarian Collectors and Collections in Early Modern Europe’. 15.30–16.00 Coffee and discussion 18.00 Dinner (speakers and project members) DAY THREE: FRIDAY 6 OCTOBER 2017 LUB, HELGONAVÄGEN 2, BROMANSALEN 9.30–11.30 Round table with presentation of individual research ideas and papers from the project members: Jacqueline Van Gent (CHE/UWA), ‘Emotions, Collecting and the Swedish East India Company’; Magdalena Naum (Aarhus University), ‘Souvenirs from America: Missionaries as Collectors’; Andreas Manhag (LUHM) and Hanna Wittrock (Lund University), ‘Tracing the Lost Hesselius’s Donation of American Curiosities’; Håkan Håkansson (Lund University Library - LUB), ‘Stobaeus’s Library and Manuscripts’ 11.30–12.30 Lunch AFTERNOON SESSION: COLLECTING “OTTOMAN CULTURE”, STOBAEUS’S CABINET AND BEYOND (Sponsored by the Swedish Institute) 12.30–13.00 Joachim Östlund (Lund University), ‘Stobaeus’s Mummy: Swedish Expeditions in Ottoman Lands and the Egyptian Mummy in Eighteenth-Century Science’. 13.00–13.30 Ulla-Karin Warberg (Nordiska museet, Stockholm), ‘Ottoman Cultural Heritage in a Swedish museum narrative. Two Anatolian carpet fragments in the collection of Nordiska museet’. 13.30–14.00 Coffee 14.00–14.30 Klas Grinell (Världsmuseet Gothenburg), The label ’Ottoman’ and the categorization of non-European museum collections in Sweden 14.30–15.00 Karin Ådahl (Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul), ‘Exotism or Orientalism. Sweden and the Ottoman cultural heritage’. 15.00–15.30 Closing discussion: Key themes of the workshop and next steps in our research ABOUT THE PROJECT PUBLIC LECTURE ABSTRACT: Our collaborative project is the first The history of European colonialism and the history of the museum as a comprehensive study of Kilian Stobaeus’s typically European institution are inseparably intertwined. While colonial (1690–1742) collection and objects added trade and global circulation of objects and commodities stimulated the to it in the following centuries. The formation of early museums, the desire for rare collectibles, in its turn, was collection consists of several hundred a driving force behind the launching and funding of colonial enterprises. objects from Asia, the Pacific, North Colonialism and the museum are two sides of ‘the restless power and desire America, Greenland and Africa. of the modern West to collect the world’, to borrow wording from James The Museum Stobaeanum, which forms Clifford. the basis of Lund University Historical In my paper, I aim to show that early modern Sweden formed part of these Museum, offers an excellent lens for entangled histories to a higher degree than is usually acknowledged. understanding Sweden’s global networks Swedish colonial enterprises and commercial interests on all known and the changing ideas about how to continents meant an inflow of artifacts and natural-history specimens from represent the ‘total world’ in a museum. faraway places. Many of these objects ended up in the museums, or Despite its richness, the collection is Kunstkammern, of Swedish royalties, aristocrats and scholars, where they poorly researched and little known in were displayed together with European works of art, scientific instruments Sweden and abroad. and pretiosa. I will take a closer look at the intellectual, aesthetic and The research focuses on collecting emotional responses provoked by these colonial objects. My premise is that practices of Stobaeus and the birth of the they played an important role in the ‘worldmaking’ of a young nation in the museum set in the context of eighteenth- northern periphery of Europe. Finally, I will address the pressing and delicate century culture. It addresses the questions questions raised by the presence of these colonial objects today. Are there of: What objects interested Stobaeus and ethically defendable ways of displaying these objects in our ethnographic and why? What were the cultural and affective other museums? What might we do with the objects? What might they do to criteria in acquiring and displaying the us? objects? What were his networks for obtaining objects? To what degree did his Mårten Snickare is Professor in Art History at Stockholm University, and he has published extensively on the ritual and performative use of baroque art and collecting reflect contemporary fashions architecture. Together with Professor Peter Gillgren he has edited the anthology and ways of ’knowing’ and representing Performativity and Performance in Baroque Rome (Ashgate, 2012). Snickare has also the world? The project also addresses the taken an interest in the concept of baroque, and in baroque tendencies in role of Florentina Stobaeus, Kilian’s wife, contemporary art and visual culture. He has participated in a number of exhibitions in the furnishing of the Museum on that topic, most recently Barockt at Kulturhuset, Stockholm (2014). Currently he is Stobaeanum, as well as the gendered undertaking research on Swedish colonial history as it has been visualised and nature of collected objects. materialised in art and other images, as well as through collecting and display. Snickare has been a research fellow at Yale University (2005–2006), Clark Art Institute (2010) and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin (2012). LUB - Lund University Library, Helgonavägen 2 LUX - Faculty of Humanities and Theology, Helgonavägen 3 LUHM - Lund University Historical Museum, Krafts torg 1.
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