Collecting a New World: The Ethnographic Collections of Margaret of Austria
2002; Truman State University; Volume: 33; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/4144018
ISSN2326-0726
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Art and Culture Studies
ResumoMargaret of Austria (1480-1530) belonged to the first generation with knowledge of the New World. As the Spanish infanta she witnessed Columbus's voyages, and her later collections, while regent of the Netherlands, included one of the earliest assemblages of artifacts of the New World. Considered both marvelous curios and treasures, they were displayed and evaluated for rarity, beauty, and skill along with Margaret's European collections. Blending New and Old World objects, Margaret also constructed a visual and immediate concept ofAmerica as a Habsburg domain. Margaret's was a new way of collecting the world and pointed towards the development of the Kunstkammer, as well as to the broader transitions leading to an imperial and colonial world. This article explores the manifold functions of Margaret's collection and through it allows a glimpse of how ideas of collecting, display, and worldview were being transformed in the early sixteenth century. A GRAND PROCESSION passed through the streets of Brussels in March 1517 to mark the death of Ferdinand I and to celebrate the ascension of Charles of Ghent (the future Charles V) to the Spanish throne.1 The procession finished with a car decorated with a golden globe and the motto Ulterius nisi morte, suggesting the expanding global empire of the new king.As if to bring this notion to life, the car was filled with Indians from the Americas, which was now a colony of Spain. Although no image exists of this procession, an idea of its effect can be glimpsed in the woodcuts Hans Burgkmair made around the same time for Charles's grandfather, Emperor Maximilian I.These images were part of a series of 137 woodcuts from the Triumph of Maximilian 1.2 Conceived by Maximilian himself, the series consists of a triumphal procession of all the peoples of the Habsburg empire. The warriors ofCalicut (the Americas)3 appear just before the baggage train, dressed in a rather
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