Maria Maistrovskaya
Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Industrial and Applied Arts, Russia
The report examines main principles and specific techniques in the presentation of art and natural-science collections in the period of the 15th–17th centuries, using the example of European countries.
The author focuses on two main exhibition types — rooms and cabinets of curiosities, and representative palace galleries, which were widespread in this period and formed a peculiar kind of presentation in the context of the leading architectural and artistic style, scientific worldview and the dominant ideology.
The article analyses the principles and forms of monumental and decorative ensemble of galleries and exposition organization of universal cabinets and storages, as a first step of forming exhibition techniques and presentation of collections in the nascent European museums. It had a significant effect on subsequent periods of their development. The article also provides extensive visual material — engravings of the period, titles of published catalogs, images of exhibition spaces in the paintings, contemporary photographs of the largest palaces of the period.