SCHOOL OF HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY

AND POLITICS

HISTORY

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Student Number: 40294072

Module Title: Cabinets of Curiosity Module Code: HIS-2067

Tutor's Name: Dr Christopher Marsh Word Count: 3000

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1
 The cabinets are opened: How museums multiplied exponentially from
1790-1930

Oftentimes, it is easy in the modern era to view museums as institutions that have existed in

perpetuity. Yet at the close of the eighteenth century, there were relatively few museums within

Europe, with the vast majority remaining as personal collections. Even those institutions such as the

British Museum that were ostensibly open to the public were restricted and aristocratic in nature; such

a state of affairs would be shattered by the great upheavals engendered by the French Revolution, and

its resultant twenty years of devastating conflict. Museums, in their theoretical and practical aspects,

were subjected to great changes during the ‘long nineteenth century’ and multiplied at a truly

exponential rate. This body of work aims to set forth a few of the most prominent causes of the

staggering rise of museums, providing specific historical examples to illustrate the wider historical

trends at play. Firstly, the rise of nationalism in the period from 1790 to 1930 shall be examined, with

a particular emphasis on how newly formed nations wished to express their national heritage via the

creation of new museums. This will then be followed up by a look at how imperialism spurred the

growth of museums, since the great European powers now had the cultural capital of the whole world

at their fingertips and desired to display it. Finally, no look at the astronomical increase of museums

during this time would be complete without acknowledging the influence of the masses. Without the

genuine interest shown by the self-conscious common people, the growth of museums surely would

have stalled. A brief synopsis of the themes discussed within this work, alongside a judgement as to

the primary reason for expansion, will serve as a conclusion.

When attempting to explain the rise of museums during the period from 1790 to 1930, it is impossible

to ignore the seminal event that affected history in so many ways: the French Revolution. In the words

of one art historian, ‘the French Revolution precipitated a tidal wave of activity when, suddenly, a

considerable number of [historical] works which, the eve before, had belonged to the king, the church
2
or private individuals, were handed over to the nation.’ 1 This newfound concept of the nation-state,

rather than territory possessed by a sovereign, is one crucial reason why museums saw such a growth

in popularity. Some museums before this period could be described as ‘national’ in character (such as

the British Museum), with one visitor in 1785 describing how the ‘Government purchased this rare

collection… at a vast expense, and exhibits it as a national honour.’2 This was certainly the exception,

rather than the rule, and the advent of nationalism on the European continent during this period

effectively transformed museums from aristocratic enclaves into truly national institutions. In

particular, ‘nineteenth-century national history museums were powerful instruments of national

politics [and] they constructed and stabilized national master narratives, 3 showcasing the historical

precedents of the nation in question. One indicative example of this process is that of Belgium, newly

independent from 1830. Fuelled by liberals and romantic nationalists, the Belgian state sought to

provide historical legitimacy for its existence and it is interesting to note that ‘in 1833… a few

historians from Ghent suggested the idea of founding a museum of national history.’ 4 Consequently, it

can be persuasively argued that the advent of nationalism and the nation-state was one factor in the

sharp rise of museums within this period, with new-found countries seeking to express their historical

legitimacy through a visual medium.

Even for regions within Europe that did not seek full political independence, they were still

‘establishing national museums as markers of cultural distinction’ 5 from their mother country. One

such example of this can be seen in Wales, a region that had lost its political independence to the

English crown. During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a nascent Welsh nationalism began

to take root in the form of groups such as Cymru Fydd (Young Wales), and one means of showcasing

1
Germain Bazin, The museum age (Brussels, 1967), p. 169. Trans. by Jane van Nuis Cahill.
2
William Hutton, A journey from Birmingham to London (Pearson and Rollason ed., Birmingham, 1785), p.
196. Emphasis added.
3
Stefan Berger, ‘National museums in between nationalism, imperialism and regionalism, 1750-1914’ in Peter
Aronsson and Gabriella Elgenius (eds), National museums and nation building in Europe 1750-2010:
mobilization and legitimacy, continuity and change (Oxford, 2015), pp 13-32.
4
Jo Tollebeek, ‘Historical representation and the nation-state in Romantic Belgium (1830-1850)’ in Journal of
the History of Ideas, lix, no. 2 (1998), pp 329-353.
5
Berger, National museums, pp 13-32.
3
their cultural and historical heritage was the establishment of a National Museum in 1907. As Prys

Morgan states, it is true ‘of the Museum and Library that, as Welsh institutions, they arise from a

romantic vision of the Welsh past and Welsh nationality.’ 6 The Welsh push to exalt their past was also

done as an act of protest against the British state, and ‘both institutions were set up in the teeth of

hostility and disdain of the British Museum and London.’7

Creating a repository of national history within the confines of a larger empire was not unique to the

Welsh, and another instructive example of this trend can be seen in the province of Transylvania. As a

result of the ethnic pluralism within Transylvania—Hungarians, Romanians and Saxon Germans to

name a few—there existed a great impetus for nationalists to exalt their particular group above the

rest. One method of doing so was through the creation of national libraries and museums, often

housed within the same building. As Niessen states, ‘each of the three ethnic groups in Transylvania

aspired to collect the bibliographic output of its nation… and to make it accessible to the public.’ 8

Moreover, once Romania and Transylvania entered into union in 1918, the new government took an

active approach to museums. In one article from 1929, the writer delighted in how ‘the government

and other organizers… have founded a variety of new museums, some of which display a surprising

growth for the short period of their existence.’ 9 Consequently, one factor for the multiplication of

museums in the modern period was the rise of nationalism, and the desire for people groups to display

their historical credentials to the world.

In many ways, the nineteenth century was the age of imperialism insofar as Europe is concerned. The

world was rapidly shrinking in the minds of many Europeans, and the wealth and riches of distant

lands could be seen in public museums, rather than the sequestered cabinets of the wealthy. It was

during the period under assessment that the British Empire truly attained its global character, and the

6
Prys Morgan, ‘The creation of the National Museum and National Library’ in John Osmond (ed.), Myths,
memories and futures: the National Library and National Museum in the story of Wales (Cardiff, 2007), pp 13-
22.
7
Ibid.
8
J. P. Niessen, ‘Museums, nationality, and public research libraries in nineteenth-century Transylvania’ in
Libraries & the Cultural Record, xli, no. 3 (2006), pp 298-336.
9
Coriolan Petranu, ‘Museum activities in Transylvania’ in Parnassus, i, no. 5 (1929), pp 15-17.
4
museum became a convenient medium to showcase the benefits of the empire to the nation. Evidence

of this sentiment can be seen in a speech that the Prince Consort, Prince Albert, gave regarding the

Exhibition of 1851. Remarking on the period ‘of most wonderful transition’ in which they were

experiencing, he stated that due to the empire, ‘the products of all quarters of the globe are placed at

our disposal.’10 Writing on the Victorian obsession with museums, B. J. Black observes that ‘the

museum served to legitimate Britain’s power at home and across the globe, it grew complicit with

British imperialism, housing the spoils of colonization.’ 11 By creating a visceral collection of colonial

treasures, the general public was invited to participate in and to marvel at imperial rule.

It was not merely the British Empire that aimed to use museums as a cloak for colonialism; the French

Empire during this period also desired to do so. France had accrued for itself a worldwide empire, and

demand for museums surged as a consequence. Robert Aldrich writes that ‘in almost all [French]

museums, colonialism appeared in one way or another: an “exotic” natural specimen, a painting of a

colonial scene, a relic of missionary activity, a uniform or weapon from a battle of conquest.’ 12

Indeed, over the course of the nineteenth century, the demand for colonial museums was so high

within France that a dozen cities would sport one. A galling example of how museums could be used

to legitimate the hard edges of colonialism can be seen in a relative latecomer to the imperialist camp:

Belgium. King Leopold II, who possessed the ironically named Congo Free State, exploited the

territory for his benefit and showed few moral compunctions when dealing with the natives. To

present the wholesale spoliation of the Congo as a net positive to the Belgian people and the world,

Leopold ‘decided to set up a permanent display of the [various] colonial collections in a museum.’ 13

As well as sporting the physical spoils of empire, the curators of the Royal Congo Museum used the

medium of large maps of Africa to exalt not only the imperial might of Leopold but of Belgium itself.

Silverman rightly observes that ‘the wall maps gave permanent and monumental form to a Belgian
10
The principal speeches and addresses of his Royal Highness, the Prince Consort, ed. Arthur Helps (London,
1862), p. 111.
11
B. J. Black, On exhibit: Victorians and their museums (Charlottesville, 2000), p. 11.
12
Robert Aldrich, Vestiges of colonial empire in France (New York, 2005), p. 202.
13
Beatrice Falcucci, ‘Visualizing colonial power: museum exhibitions and the promotion of imperialism in
France, Belgium, and Italy’ in Nuncius, xxxvi, no. 3 (2021), pp 676-722.
5
imperial culture exhilarated by the fact that a small, new, neutral nation had “acquired” one-thirteenth

of the African continent.’14 Once more, imperial self-justification was given a mode of expression via

museums, merely one example of a wider European phenomenon.

Displaying foreign treasures in museums had been foreshadowed by Lord Elgin and his Parthenon

Marbles, however, it was during the mid-nineteenth century that the process gained momentum

among European powers. Not wishing to be outdone, the newly formed German Empire and the

Hohenzollern royal family sought to project their imperial might through the usage of museums. For

instance, the Pergamon Altar was excavated by Carl Humann during the 1880s and had an entire

museum dedicated to its housing in Berlin. For many Germans at the time, still citizens of a young

empire, ‘the installation of the Pergamon altar in its new museum in the heart of Berlin in 1902

imparted the luster and sanction of antiquity to… the Empire, its capital, and the [Hohenzollern]

dynasty.’15 For the perennially competitive nations of Europe, wishing to compare themselves to the

great civilisations of Greece and Rome, there was a great deal of incentive to accumulate ancient

relics and to store them in public museums. Therefore, imperial pride and a desire to hearken back to

antiquity was another factor in the rise of museums during this period.

Finally, it must be recognised that the growth of museums was not merely a top-down process in our

period. These institutions would not have grown in such numbers and with such speed if it had merely

been a cynical attempt by the state to legitimise its authority. New revelations in the fields of

archaeology, history and science were causes for a great deal of excitement for the general public.

One such example of this popular desire to learn about the past can be seen in the fascination with

Egyptology; the invasion of Egypt by Bonaparte in 1798 led to the revival of interest in a region that

had long been neglected by Europeans. In the UK, museums such as William Bullock’s ‘Egyptian

Hall’ presented the relics of Egyptian history in a lively and engaging manner to the population. In

14
D. L. Silverman, ‘Diasporas of art: history, the Tervuren Royal Museum for Central Africa, and the politics of
memory in Belgium, 1885-2014’ in The Journal of Modern History, lxxxvii, no. 3 (2015), pp 615-67.
15
Lionel Gossman, ‘Imperial icon: the Pergamon Altar in Wilhelminian Germany’ in The Journal of Modern
History, lxxviii, no. 3 (2006), pp 551-587.
6
1849, the British Museum even unveiled a moving panorama of the River Nile which was ‘an

enormous popular success, [which] took its viewers up the river from Cairo and back again.’ 16 Further

supporting the idea that the proliferation of museums during this period was fuelled by popular

sentiment is the morbid fascination with Egyptian mummies. William Clift, the Conservator of the

Hunterian Museum, noted in his diary that on the day that a mummy was open for public viewing,

‘visitors in considerable numbers arrived very early and filled all the seats; many were obliged to

stand.’17 Therefore, it is evident from this first-hand example that the popular interest in museums

helped to drive their expansion in this period.

Furthermore, the period under question was undoubtedly one of transition in terms of how the general

public engaged with museums. The central reason that museums ceased to be ‘cabinets of curiosity’

and became truly public institutions was that there was a great groundswell of support from the

‘common people’ to view history on their terms. Once the floodgates were opened, the multiplication

of museums was a foregone conclusion. This can especially be seen in the Regency period, one where

the private cabinets of the wealthy truly became public institutions. As previously mentioned, the

British Museum was an early example of a ‘national museum’, yet for its early years access was

restricted to those of ‘decent character’ and the general public were usually unable to visit. During the

Regency, ‘the public appetite for museum going was such that visitor numbers swelled to close to

28,000 in 1811-12’,18 a clear sign that more museums would be needed to sate such an appetite.

Another instructive case is that of Italy, a ‘geographical expression’ that became a unified nation only

in 1871. Rather than a top-down curation of national artefacts by rulers, Ilaria Porciani rightly states

that Italian museums of the early twentieth century were ‘not only collections open to the public, they

were also collections assembled by the public.’19

16
Sophie Thomas, ‘Displaying Egypt: archaeology, spectacle, and the museum in the early nineteenth century’
in Journal of Literature and Science, v, no. 2 (2012), pp 6-22.
17
‘William Clift’s diary, 1834’ in Susan Pearce, Rosemary Flanders, Mark Hall and Fiona Morton (eds), The
collector’s voice: critical readings in the practise of collecting (4 vols, Farnham, 2002), iii, p. 303.
18
Sophie Thomas, ‘Collecting, cultural memory, and the Regency museum’ in Tim Fulford and M. E. Sinatra
(eds), The Regency revisited (Basingstoke, 2016), pp 159-75.
19
Ilaria Porciani, ‘Nations on display, history museums in Europe’ in Ilaria Porciani and Jo Tollebeek (eds),
Setting the standards: institutions, networks and communities of national historiography (Basingstoke, 2012),
7
Growing popular interest in the sciences during the nineteenth century also helped to fuel the meteoric

rise of natural history museums and others of its kind. Public interest in the workings of the natural

world helped to democratise the hitherto genteel collections of flora and fauna in museums such as the

Ashmolean, with more being constructed to match demand. One instructive example of this process is

in the multiplication of public anatomy museums in the UK during the Victorian era; due to the

general public’s desire to visit these institutions, ‘at least seven more public anatomy museums

opened in England.’20 This pattern spread all across Europe, and the cultural zeitgeist of scientific

discovery helped expand museums beyond strictly historical lines; they grew and were transformed

into depositories of natural wonder, which gripped the imaginations of the ordinary person. Therefore,

it is clear that the growing desire amongst the general population of people within Europe to view

museums helped to spur on their expansion. Discoveries such as Egyptian mummies, along with a

renewed fascination with the natural world fuelled by men such as Darwin, led to the laws of supply

and demand driving the growth of museums.

It is clear that of all the various factors that led to the multiplication of museums during the period

from 1790 to 1930, the three main ones listed above (nationalism, imperialism, and public interest)

were the most influential. As mentioned above, the cataclysm that was the French Revolution

unleashed the forces of nationalism on the European continent. Consequently, museums shifted from

being collections for the aristocracy and the crowned heads of Europe to being collections by and for

the common people. This can be seen in how people groups who did not yet have full political

sovereignty sought to legitimate their historical credentials via museums, with one example

previously noted is that of the Welsh Cymru Fydd movement. As a result, the number of museums

would skyrocket as each nationality sought to outdo the others in displaying their historical heritage.

The rise and consolidation of global European empires would also impel the marked increase of

museums, as imperial houses such as the Hohenzollerns would display artefacts from foreign lands to

pp 130-52.
20
A.W. Bates, ‘“Indecent and demoralising representations”’: public anatomy museums in mid-Victorian
England’ in Medical History, lii, no. 1 (2008), pp 1-22.
8
boost their prestige. Furthermore, imperial museums served to legitimise the exploitation of lands

such as the Belgian Congo to the citizens back in the metropole. Finally, it was also observed that the

rise of an educated and interested public also contributed to the increasing number of museums during

this period, and it is evident that this is the central reason. Without a general public who asserted their

right to view their history, museums would likely have remained small in number and dominated by

cliquish private collections. The rise of nationalism, which exalted the people rather than the

sovereign, led to an explosion of folk museums and other such exhibits. Therefore, it can be said that

a combination of these three factors led to the multiplication of museums in this period, with popular

pressure serving as a connecting thread.

9
 Bibliography

Primary sources:

Hutton, William, A journey from Birmingham to London (Pearson and Rollason ed., Birmingham,

1785).

The principal speeches and addresses of his Royal Highness, the Prince Consort, ed. Arthur Helps

(London, 1862).

‘William Clift’s diary, 1834’ in Susan Pearce, Rosemary Flanders, Mark Hall and Fiona Morton (eds),

The collector’s voice: critical readings in the practise of collecting (4 vols, Farnham, 2002), iii.

Secondary Sources:

Aldrich, Robert, Vestiges of colonial empire in France (New York, 2005).

Bates, A. W., ‘“Indecent and demoralising representations”’: public anatomy museums in mid-

Victorian England’ in Medical History, lii, no. 1 (2008), pp 1-22.

Bazin, Germain, The museum age (Brussels, 1967). Trans. by Jane van Nuis Cahill.

Berger, Stefan, ‘National museums in between nationalism, imperialism and regionalism, 1750-1914’

in Peter Aronsson and Gabriella Elgenius (eds), National museums and nation building in Europe

1750-2010: mobilization and legitimacy, continuity and change (Oxford, 2015), pp 13-32.

Black, B. J., On exhibit: Victorians and their museums (Charlottesville, 2000).

Falcucci, Beatrice, ‘Visualizing colonial power: museum exhibitions and the promotion of

imperialism in France, Belgium, and Italy’ in Nuncius, xxxvi, no. 3 (2021), pp 676-722.

Gossman, Lionel, ‘Imperial icon: the Pergamon Altar in Wilhelminian Germany’ in The Journal of

Modern History, lxxviii, no. 3 (2006), pp 551-587.

10
Morgan, Prys, ‘The creation of the National Museum and National Library’ in John Osmond (ed.),

Myths, memories and futures: the National Library and National Museum in the story of Wales

(Cardiff, 2007).

Niessan, J. P., ‘Museums, nationality, and public research libraries in nineteenth-century

Transylvania’ in Libraries & the Cultural Record, xli, no. 3 (2006), pp 298-336.

Petranu, Coriolan, ‘Museum activities in Transylvania’ in Parnassus, i, no. 5 (1929), pp 15-17.

Porciani, Ilaria, ‘Nations on display, history museums in Europe’ in Ilaria Porciani and Jo Tollebeek

(eds), Setting the standards: institutions, networks and communities of national historiography

(Basingstoke, 2012), pp 130-52.

Silverman, D. L., ‘Diasporas of art: history, the Tervuren Royal Museum for Central Africa, and the

politics of memory in Belgium, 1885-2014’ in The Journal of Modern History, lxxxvii, no. 3 (2015),

pp 615-67.

Thomas, Sophie, ‘Collecting, cultural memory, and the Regency museum’ in Tim Fulford and M. E.

Sinatra (eds), The Regency revisited (Basingstoke, 2016), pp 159-75.

---,‘Displaying Egypt: archaeology, spectacle, and the museum in the early nineteenth century’ in

Journal of Literature and Science, v, no. 2 (2012), pp 6-22.

Tollebeek, Jo., ‘Historical representation and the nation-state in Romantic Belgium (1830-1850)’ in

Journal of the History of Ideas, lix, no. 2 (1998), pp 329-353.

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