Colonial Objects in Early Modern Sweden and Beyond: From the Kunstkammer to the Current Museum Crisis

Mårten Snickare

book: Colonial Objects in Early Modern Sweden and Beyond

Open Access Published by Amsterdam University Press 2022

Colonial Objects in Early Modern Sweden and Beyond

From the Kunstkammer to the Current Museum Crisis

Mårten Snickare

Volume 34 in the series Visual and Material Culture, 1300 –1700

https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048554942

Overview
Contents

About this book

An elaborately crafted and decorated tomahawk from somewhere along the North American east coast: how did it end up in the royal collections in Stockholm in the late seventeenth century? What does it say about the Swedish kingdom’s colonial ambitions and desires? What questions does it raise from its present place in a display cabinet in the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm?
Colonial Objects in Early Modern Sweden and Beyond is about the tomahawk and other objects like it, acquired in colonial contact zones and displayed by Swedish elites in the seventeenth century. Its first part situates the objects in two distinct but related spaces: the expanding space of the colonial world, and the exclusive space of the Kunstkammer. The second part traces the objects’ physical and epistemological transfer from the Kunstkammer to the modern museum system. In the final part, colonial objects are considered at the centre of a heated debate over the present state of museums, and their possible futures.

Author / Editor information

Snickare Mårten :

Mårten Snickare is Professor of Art History at Stockholm University and Director of Accelerator, an exhibition space at the university where art and science meet. He has published extensively on Swedish and European Baroque art and architecture.

Reviews

"Snickare’s arguments are not only timely but also model an historically grounded, balanced and judicious approach to issues that trouble many institutions around the world currently trying to address the complex legacies of colonialism."
- Ruth Phillips, Carleton University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	1
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	5
List of Illustrations Open Access Download PDF	7
Acknowledgements Open Access Download PDF	11
Introduction: The King’s Tomahawk? Open Access Download PDF	13
Part I Colonial Objects in Space: Baroque Practices of Collecting and Display
1. The Spaces of Colonial Objects : The Colonial World and the Kunstkammer Open Access Download PDF	23
2. Global Interests: Colonial Policy and Collecting in the Reign of Queen Christina Open Access Download PDF	39
3. Performing Difference: Court Culture and Collecting in the Time of Hedwig Eleonora Open Access Download PDF	51
4. Object Lessons: Materiality and Knowledge in the Kunstkammer of Johannes Schefferus Open Access Download PDF	69
Part II Colonial Objects in Time: Object Itineraries
5. Objects and their Agency and Itineraries Open Access Download PDF	93
6. From North America to Nordamerika: A Tomahawk Open Access Download PDF	101
7. From Northern Sápmi to Nordiska Museet: A Goavddis Open Access Download PDF	121
Part III The Fate of Colonial Objects: Pasts, Presents, and Futures
8. Learning from the Kunstkammer? Colonial Objects and Decolonial Options Open Access Download PDF	145
Bibliography Open Access Download PDF	191
About the Author Open Access Download PDF	209
Index Open Access Download PDF	211

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 216
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 35
- Coloured Illustrations: 35
Keywords: Colonial object; materiality; colonialism; Kunstkammer; museum; decolonisation

eBook

Published: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 9789048554942