The Kunstkamera (, derived from German ''Kunstkammer'' lit. "art chamber") formally organized as the Russian Academy of Science's Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (, ''Muzey antropologii i etnografii imeni Petra Velikogo Rossiyskoy akademii nauk'') - abbreviated in Russian as the or ; is a Russian public museum of science located on the Universitetskaya Embankment in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, facing the Winter Palace. Its collection was first opened at the

Summer Palace The Summer Palace () is a vast ensemble of lakes, gardens and palaces in Beijing. It was an imperial garden during the Qing dynasty. Inside includes Longevity Hill () Kunming Lake and Seventeen Hole Bridge. It covers an expanse of , three-quar ...

Peter the Great Peter I (, ; – ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...

in 1714 as Russia's first public museum. Enlarged by purchases from the Dutch collectors Albertus Seba and Frederik Ruysch, the museum was moved to its present location in 1727. Although most known for its "grotesques," the museum houses nearly 2,000,000 items, including materials from various non-Russian countries. The Kunstkamera is notable as a surviving example of Petrine baroque. Particularly notable is its Armillary Sphere, which crowns the spire.

History

As part of

's establishment of

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

as the new Russian capital, he established an imperial

cabinet of curiosities Cabinets of curiosities ( and ), also known as wonder-rooms ( ), were encyclopedic collections of objects whose categorical boundaries were, in Renaissance Europe, yet to be defined. Although more rudimentary collections had preceded them, t ...

- or kunstkammer - dedicated to preserving "natural and human curiosities and rarities" in the manner of some of the other European courts since the 16th century. Such cabinets allowed rulers and the elite to acquire a fuller knowledge of the world and to demonstrate their control over it. Peter's personal collection was first exhibited to the public at the

in 1714, which is used by the present museum as its founding date. Peter's main interest was in natural things () rather than manmade ones (). A major component of the original collection was a large assortment of human and animal

fetus A fetus or foetus (; : fetuses, foetuses, rarely feti or foeti) is the unborn offspring of a viviparous animal that develops from an embryo. Following the embryonic development, embryonic stage, the fetal stage of development takes place. Pren ...

es with various

birth defect A birth defect is an abnormal condition that is present at birth, regardless of its cause. Birth defects may result in disabilities that may be physical, intellectual, or developmental. The disabilities can range from mild to severe. Birth de ...

s, many of which Peter had acquired in 1697 from Frederick Ruysch and Levinus Vincent. Peter encouraged research into deformities, particularly in order to debunk superstitious fear of monsters. In particular, he issued a

ukase In Imperial Russia, a ukase () or ukaz ( ) was a proclamation of the tsar, government, or a religious leadership (e.g., Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus' or the Most Holy Synod) that had the force of law. " Edict" and " decree" are adequate trans ...

ordering malformed stillborn infants to be sent from anywhere in Russia to the imperial collection. He subsequently had them put on show in the Kunstkamera as examples of accidents of nature. The present Kunstkamera is a turreted Petrine Baroque building designed by

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n architect Georg Johann Mattarnovy. Its foundation stone was laid in 1719 and it was fully completed in 1727. A separate building had become necessary after the purchase of large collections from the Dutch pharmacologist Albertus Seba in 1716 and the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch in 1717. Examination and organization of these collections also spurred the creation of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

. A third acquisition came from Jacob de Wilde, a collector of gems and scientific instruments. These purchases were largely organized by Robert Erskine, Peter's chief physician, and his secretary Johann Daniel Schumacher.

Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography

In the 1830s, the Kunstkamera collections were dispersed to newly established imperial museums, the most important being the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, established in 1879. It has a collection approaching 2,000,000 items and has been known as the Peter the Great Museum since 1903 in order to distinguish it from the Russian Museum of Ethnography. In 1747 some objects were lost in a fire.

List of directors

* Leopold Schrenk (1879–94) * Vasily Radlov (1894–1918) *

Vasily Bartold Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold (; – 19 August 1930), who published in the West under his German baptismal name, Wilhelm Barthold, was a Russian orientalist who specialized in the history of Islam and the Turkic peoples ( Turkology). Biogra ...

(1918–21) * Yefim Karskiy (1921–30) * Nikolay Matorin (1930–36) * Dmitry Olderogge (1935–40) * Nikolai Kislyakov (1940–48) * Leonid Potapov (1948–1967) * Lyudmila Saburova (1967–1982) * Rudolf Its (1982–1990) * Nikolai Girenko (1991–92) * Alexander Myl'nikov (1992–97) * Chuner Taksami (1997–2001) * Yuri Chistov (2001–present)Kunstkamera
/ref>

References

Bibliography

* Vladimir Romanovich Arsenyev. 1999. Le musée d'Anthropologie et d'Ethnographie Pierre-le-Grand à Saint-Pétersbourg. Cahiers d'Études africaines 39, no. 155/156: 681–699.

External links