27 January

Lecture by Mark A. Meadow, Department of History of Art and Architecture at University of California Santa Barbara

lecture of 40 minutes followed by q&a plus discussion

The Minor Nobility as Intermediaries in the Formation of the Kunstkammer: Johann Wilhelm von Laubenberg, Ulrich von Montfort and Wilhelm Werner von Zimmern

In 1562, the knight Johann Wilhelm von Laubenberg von Wagegg wrote to Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria seeking to sell his “heidnischen irdischen schatz,” which included ancient coins and other antiquities, the now renowned Codex Argenteus, and other rarities. His motivation in offering his holdings to Albrecht was, in no small part, that his sons and heirs had “neither then skills nor the interest or knowledge” to solve the “puzzles” that his possessions presented. A little over a decade later, Count Ulrich IV von Montfort zu Tetnang passed away, leading to intense interest in acquiring his collection, which included “a variety of foreign [mörisch] gear made of feathers” that in 1590 found its way into the Kunstkammer of Ferdinand of Tyrol. This paper explores the status of such minor noble collectors as intermediaries who assembled considerable troves of objects only to have them dispersed or absorbed wholesale into the collections of princes and wealthy merchants. I argue that Montfort, Laubenberg and others assembled these collections in no small part as an effort towards stabilizing family status in a period when the minor nobility were under threat from the great princes above them in social rank, and from the great merchant houses that were surpassing them in wealth. The dispersal and absorption of their prized treasures thus mirrors the decline they faced socially, politically and economically.
After earlier careers as a Baroque oboist, caterer, housepainter and music publisher, Mark A. Meadow became a specialist in Northern Renaissance art and the History and Theory of Museums. Currently Chair of the Department of Music at University of California Santa Barbara, Mark's research interests include the relationship of art and rhetoric, early-modern ritual and spectacle, print culture, social networks, and the origins of Kunst- and Wunderkammern. He is the author of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Netherlandish Proverbs and the Practice of Rhetoric (2002) and has also produced translations and critical editions of two important sixteenth-century sources: Symon Andriessoon’s 1550 Duytsche Adagia ofte spreeckwoorden (2003) and, with Bruce Robertson, Samuel Quiccheberg’s 1565 Inscriptiones vel tituli Theatri Amplissimi (2013). He is a co-founder and editorial board member of the book series Proteus: Studies in Identity Formation in Early-Modern Image-Text-Ritual-Habitat, with Brepols Publishers in Belgium. Mark’s most recent project, in collaboration with Profs. Andrew Morrall of the Bard Graduate Center and Vera Keller of the University of Oregon, investigates the relationship between early modern collecting, techne, and governance.

24 February

Eliška Zlatohlávková, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague

20-minute museum presentation followed by q&a plus discussion

The picture collection of the bishops and archbishops of Olomouc

The picture collection of the bishops and archbishops of Olomouc ranks among the most important art collections preserved in the Czech Republic. Its character was shaped by figures such as Bishop Carel of Liechtenstein-Castelcorno and Archbishop Theodor Kohn, who enriched it through acquisitions on the European art market. The collection adorned both representative and private spaces of the archiepiscopal residences, and its display evolved over the centuries. The paper will focus on the presentation of this collection at the Kroměříž Chateau, where two distinct approaches can still be observed today – the classical picture gallery and the so-called panel arrangement, a continuous wall decoration using paintings.

Eliška Zlatohlávková studied Art History at the Department of Art History of Charles University, Prague. She gained her PhD with a theses on the iconography of Rudolf II before starting to work at Studia Rudolphina, the Research Centre for Visual Arts and Culture in the Age of Rudolf II. Currently, she works as scientific researcher at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague. Her main research focusses on art at the court of Rudolf II, spaces for art collections (studiolo, Kunstkammer) and princely collections of the early modern era. She is co-author of the monograph From Studiolo to Gallery, Secular Spaces for Collections in the Lands of the Bohemian Crown on the Threshold of the Early Modern Era and has written articles dealing with collection spaces and collecting in the early modern era.