About 3 hours by car northeast of Landshut (our last stopover) and say 4 to 5 hours from Munich is the little town of Waldenburg, Germany (formally, East Germany) which houses an appealing wunderkammer, the Cabinet of Natural Sciences. The wunderkammern discussed in the last two chapters in Munich and Landshut were both first-period (pre-1650) and princely. At the other end of the spectrum is this one. Began in the second period (post-1650), this systematically-presented collection was founded by commoners and focused almost exclusively on natural history.

The wunderkammer was founded about 1670 by pharmacist Heinrich Linck (1638-1717) of Leipzig and added to by his son, Johann (1674-1734) also a pharmacist, and in turn by Johann’s son, Johann the Younger (1734-1807). Otto Victor I (1785-1859) prince of Schonburg-Waldenburg, purchased the Linck collection in 1841, moved it to its current location, and significantly added to it. It retains a Victorian character today and occupies over 9 rooms in a sea of glass cabinets.

Freaks of nature were certainly of interest to the Lincks. Here some stillborn babies with significant deformities are preserved in spirits, giving the term curiosity cabinet a new meaning. Similar samples as dry mounted specimens are also included.

In addition to a large herbarium (2500 pages) of pressed leaves and flowers there is a cabinet filled with over 800 samples of woods of the world, showing the second-period systematic collector’s penchant for imposing order on nature.

The scatter-shot approach of the first-period wunderkammer is not totally eliminated, however. One cabinet cheerfully exhibits a medieval chastity belt (left) next to specimens in spirits of snakes and reptiles, in turn next to a Roman lamp.

The scientific instrument collection of the Lincks’ includes an armillary c 1650 driven by a clock motor.

Two devices for producing extreme heat each work on the principal of focusing the sun’s rays, a burning mirror and a large magnifying glass. The parabola shaped burning mirror (left) has its surface gold plated and was used in experiments including the treatment of rheumatism and gout. The magnifying glass (right) could generate heat of 1500 degrees Celsius, hotter than any fire. Its builder cooperated with J F Bottger, the alchemist who invented Europeans porcelain, first produced at Meissen in 1708. (More on this in the next chapter.)

There is an entire room of minerals and fossils.

This collection includes a group of Baltic amber specimens, including, in turn, a collector’s ultimate nightmare: a fake. One piece of amber has a frog locked inside it, presumably one caught in the sticky pine sap which got fossilized along with the sap to make amber. Research now shows no frogs ever live in the Baltic during the amber-producing era, so we now know this to be a fake produced in the 18th century. (More on fakes and how to avoid them in a later chapter.) The fake is barely visible in the bottom center.

There is a large collection of stuffed birds, and here some are shown with some narwhale tusks.

There is a large collection of crustasians, beetles and butterflies.

The products of ancient and exotic cultures were included, for instance an Egyptian mummy was added in 1845 by Prince Otto Victor I, as was a Chinese fancifully-carved ivory palace.

The mineral collection includes beautiful pietra dura (stone inlay in stone slabs).

And in case you didn’t know wunderkammerists had a sense of humor, the mineral collection includes a concretion which has been quartered like a boiled egg.

This off-the-beaten-path wunderkammer feels as if it’s been undisturbed for the last 150 years. You feel you’re watching the early classifier and the early scientific mind at work, puzzling out what the relationships are that bind the world together.

I recommend two hours or so to absorb this plus another hour to review the first floor exhibits on the history of the area. Be sure to ask for the guide written in English.