Fish out of water : collecting aquatic animals in the Early Modern period

• Main Author: Rijks, Marlise
• Other Authors: Smith, Paul J., Egmond, Florike
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Leiden University 2018
• Subjects: Arts and Architecture; Natural history; history of collecting; early modern; seventeenth century; narwhal*
• Online Access: https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8692952; http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8692952; https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/8692952/file/8692954

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe had a lively collecting culture. Princes and professors, apothecaries and artists, merchants and physicians: different groups of people became obsessed with collecting. They collected man-made and natural objects: artificialia and naturalia. Various aquatic naturalia belonged to the most fashionable collectables – think of blowfish, sawfish, narwhal tusks, horseshoe crabs, corals, and shells. Most sought after were particularly curious, rare, or exotic objects. But very practical reasons were important too: those specimens easiest to preserve and transport most often ended up in cabinets. The culture of collecting, with its hands-on investigation of naturalia, was crucial for the development of the field of natural history. Besides the preservation of specimens (which could done by drying them or immersing them in spirits), collectors and naturalists understood the importance of good images. Some collectors made beautifully illustrated catalogues to their collections. Others amassed watercolour albums. Still others purchased print series of fish images, a genre that was newly invented in the sixteenth century.