112 – 113 Cabinet of Curiosities The painting Cabinet of Curiosities was created by Hamburg still life painter Georg Hainz around 1666. Valuable objects made of many precious materials are displayed on shelves with 15 compartments. Treasures made of cut semi-precious stones, such as the carafe made of agate, are shown here. Pearls and coral necklaces are ingeniously draped in the picture to create more depth. Two pistols are also hung in front of the shelves to produce the same effect. Shells, trophies, and statuettes seem like separate art works in this picture. In the lower compartments, natural objects such as seashells are rendered in exact detail. In the middle of the shelves is a great ivory trophy with a lid, which is a work by Joachim Henne, one of the most eminent ivory carvers of the Baroque era. From ca. 1663 to 1665, he worked in Hamburg at the same time as Hainz.1 Scenes of a putti bacchanalia, meaning putti at a feast of the wine god Bacchus, are depicted on the trophy. The painter rendered the scene from the reverse side of the trophy on the ivory stein in the compartment on the left. Here, the inebriated Bacchus is being supported by putti. Due to the deceptively real rendering, the picture seems to have depth behind the frame. This painting technique is called trompe l’oeil, French for ‘deceive the eye’. Georg Hainz uses the shelves as a virtual space to bring the objects close to the picture’s surface. The resulting realism of the objects could give rise to the assumption that they are from a specific collection. However, this has not yet been proven.2 Many of the objects depicted on the cabinet’s shelves are vanitas, i.e. symbols of human transience. This pictorial language typical of the Baroque period represents the tension between the aphorisms carpe diem (seize the day) and memento mori (remember that you shall die). This duality can also be found on the shelves in the cabinet of curiosities. The playing putti and drinking receptacles as elements of worldly pleasures are contrasted with skulls and pocket watches as symbols of transience. The actual cabinet of curiosities of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg had characteristics similar to the one shown in this painting. The cabinet of curiosities’ inventory of 1688 was the inventory made upon the Elector’s death. The ‘carved and turned art objects’, also called artificialia, form the majority of the collection, followed by the naturalia, rare objects of natural history.3 | CONSTANT I JN JOHANNES LEL IVELD
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