A rediscovered royal treasure

The Aletsch model was once the main attraction of the Berlin Kunstkammer

There is a landscape model of the Swiss Alps in the Geomorphological-Geological Collection of the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU). What was not known for a long time is that it is a historical illustrative object from the Berlin Kunstkammer, which was based in the Berlin Palace. Scientists from various disciplines at the HU have discovered this together with Oscar Wüest, curator of the Landslide Museum in Goldau, Switzerland.

The topographical relief shows the upper Rhone valley with the Aletsch glacier (located in the Swiss canton of Valais). It measures approximately 140 by 100 centimetres, is largely made of plaster and wood and is in need of restoration. It was already included in a project database at the Hermann von Helmholtz Centre for Cultural Technology at Humboldt University in 2011. At that time, however, neither the provenance nor the context in which the landscape model was made could be clarified. The art historian Eva Dolezel came across this database entry while working on her dissertation. The information from the archival sources suggested that the model in the HU collection was an object from the Berlin Kunstkammer.

Sensualisation of knowledge

The first room-filling topographical relief was purchased in 1805 and was one of the main attractions of the collection at the turn of the 19th century. The relief was the work of the Swiss topographer and relief maker Joachim Eugen Müller (1752-1833) and a pioneering work in the exact topography of the Alps. In addition to its scientific significance, it also seemed to meet precisely the need for a ‘sensualisation’ of knowledge that was booming in the 18th century. The enthusiasm for reliefs continued in Berlin in the following years. Various extension modules were ordered from Switzerland in order to be able to depict an even larger part of the Alps. The preserved model is one of the supplementary panels that were purchased for the Kunstkammer in 1820.

The Berlin Kunstkammer was founded in the 16th century and was housed in the Berlin Palace from the very beginning. It was a typical representative of the universal collections found in the early modern period at many royal courts, but also in scholarly households or scientific institutions. Objects of nature, art and science were collected here until their successive dissolution in the 19th century. Today, the surviving objects from this collection can be found in many of Berlin’s museums.

The beginning of this process was marked by the founding of Berlin University (today’s HU) in 1810, which received the Kunstkammer’s natural science collections. The rediscovered relief of the Aletsch Glacier probably only entered the university’s collections much later. How, when and by what means it came here from the Kunstkammer has not yet been clarified.

Further information

Eva Dolezel: ‘The dream of the museum. Die Kunstkammer im Berliner Schloss um 1800 – eine museumgeschichtliche Verortung, Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2019.

UNIVERSITY COLLECTIONS IN GERMANY