Collecting Wonders

Beginning in the 16th century in Europe, collectors assembled Wunderkammern, so-called cabinets of curiosity designed to evince wonder and awe. These collections housed weird and sometimes wild conjunctions of the natural and the man-made, the local and the exotic. Claudia Swan, the inaugural Mark Steinberg Weil Professor of Art History at Washington University, will discuss how objects in curiosity cabinets were collected, exchanged, stolen, organized and valued. Free tickets for the on-site program may be reserved in person at the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Information Centers or through MetroTix. This lecture will also be livestreamed for free via Zoom; see website to register.