The Paper Museum of the Academy of Sciences in St. ...

In the early eighteenth century, Peter the Great established the Kunstkamera as the encyclopedic museum of the Academy of Sciences in Russia. This volume offers for the first time a complete detailed catalog of the approximately 2,200 surviving drawings of the objects in the museum's collections. The result of a five-year research effort by distinguished Russian and Dutch scholars, this comprehensive work provides a wealth of insights into the original collection of the legendary Kunstkamera. The drawings cover a wide range of disciplines, from botany and anatomy to archaeology and Chinese objects and were used to document the objects in the museum's collections and to illustrate Academy members' publications. The volume opens with four thematic essays that consider the historical and aesthetic significance of the drawings. Nine subsequent sections discuss specific types of objects and feature numerous illustrations. A bilingual Russian-English DVD augments this volume with a detailed searchable catalogue and full-color images of the complete collection of drawings. The Paper Museum of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg is a groundbreaking work of historical research that will be an invaluable resource to historians, art specialists, and museum curators.