We need an Antiques Roadshow for Wunderkammer!

i-cad05fc0640d0ed939c955bb01a83d15-3525651289_52ba972888_o.jpg

Joanna of Morbid Anatomy is on a quest to locate private collections of medical oddities. She's already sussed out fourteen such hidden wunderkammern and photographed their treasures, but she wants to find more:

"Who are these private collectors, and what sort of treasures do they possess? How might their methods of displaying collections differ from institutional approaches? Are we reaching a historical moment similar to the pre-museum era of private cabinets, in which the most interesting artifacts are now in private rather than public hands?"

It's a really interesting question. Wunderkammern were not originally institutional - these cabinets were in private hands, and their organizational philosophies emerged from the idiosyncratic worldviews of their owners and/or curators. Today, such collections could easily die with their owners - broken up and auctioned off, or simply thrown out as rubbish. The beauty and value of taxidermic specimens, vintage gas masks, bottled fetuses and prosthetic limbs are not readily apparent to everyone! And it's unlikely that a steampunk version of Antiques Roadshow would have a large American audience (alas). So if you own or know of a collection that fits the bill, please contact Joanna, so she can document it for the public and posterity. (Owners can remain anonymous if they choose.)

More like this

tags: Oology And Ralph's Talking Eggs, conservation, ornithology, oology, Carrol L. Henderson, book review People's methods for learning about the lives of birds have varied throughout the decades. Today, birders learn about their feathery subjects by using binoculars, telescopes, sound recording…
Right wing TV bloviators oppose scientific research. And in other news, dog bites man. By way of Bug Girl, I came across this story about Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson opposing the use of $187,632 of stimulus money to buy storage cabinets for Michigan State University's Albert J. Cook Arthropod…
I have a great liking for cassowaries, and I've had good reason to write about them several times. I've also had fun playing with preserved specimens and skeletons - something I must elaborate on at some time. Back in 2006 - the days of Tet Zoo ver 1 - I blogged some of my cassowary-related musings…
Linnea, one of the Salto sobrius regulars, asked two questions today on the Swedish archaeology mailing list that would be in my archaeology FAQ if I had one. Who owns an archaeological find made by a member of the public?Is it legal to sell archaeological finds?Here's how things work in Sweden,…