A Collection of Renaissance and Baroque Scientific Instruments, German and French, 16th-18th centuries. Wood, silver, brass, ivory, glass. Height 4-18.5 cm. KUNSTKAMMER GEORG LAUE at TEFAF 2024. © 2024 TEFAF

Provenance: French and German private collections..

On the occasion of TEFAF Maastricht 2024, Kunstkammer Georg Laue will present a collection of outstanding scientifica from the Renaissance and Baroque period, encompassing various elaborated sundials and other scientific instruments, partly crafted from precious materials such as silver and ivory. Since the 16th century, scientifica have played an essential part in the formation of Kunstkammer collections, especially at court. Scientific instruments represent one of the most important genres in the Kunstkammer because they vividly demonstrate that man is a small god: he is able to measure time and space with instruments and machines he has devised himself, and even to induce movement artificially through automata.

Furthermore, in the context of princely collections, scientific instruments symbolically refer not only to man’s creative powers but to the ruler’s capability to gauge his surroudings, keep them under control, adapt them, and improving them. Hence, implements for measuring time and space prominently featured in the Kunstkammer of the early modern era. When the 10,000 exhibits in the Dresden Kunstkammer were inventoried for the first time in 1585, the share of mathematical and technical instruments included amounted to 950, among them 300 measuring instruments.