This drawing from the 16th century shows the Oldenburg Horn, one of the most famous pieces of gold work of the late Gothic period. Today, the drawing is kept in the Kunstbibliothek of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

The Oldenburg Horn became popular due to Achim von Arnim’s and Clemens Brentano’s collection of songs “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” (1805-1808). It is thereby an important testimony to the rediscovery of medieval art by the Romantics in the 19th century.

The drawing of the Oldenburg Horn has travelled a long way through various collections, which gives a rare insight into the history of the development of the Berlin museums. In the 18th century, it was part of the Kunstkammer in the Berlin Palace. In the Kunstkammer’s inventory of 1694, you can find the entry "24. Das Oldenburgische Wunderhorn Vergüldet ist in einem schwartzen rahmen" („The Oldenburg Drinking Horn, gold-plated, within a black frame“). The drawing referred to a spectacular object from the Copenhagen Kunstkammer. This was where the Oldenburg Horn was to be found until the early 19th century.

After stations in the Neues Museum and in the Deutsches Gewerbe-Museum (today’s Kunstgewerbemuseum), which was housed in the Martin Gropius Building at that time, the drawing of the Oldenburg Horn finally found its way into the library of the Gewerbe-Museum (today’s Kunstbibliothek) in 1907, which was housed in the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, today’s Niederkirchner Straße.

The library was already a separate department of the Königliche Museen at that time. Up to 1894, it had been part of the Gewerbe-Museum and had served, above all, as a teaching collection of the Kunstgewerbeschule associated with the museum. In these new surroundings, the drawing of the Oldenburg Horn was part of an exemplary collection. It could serve artists, designers and manufacturers as an inspiration for their work. 

In the intervention "Objects on the move. From the Kunstkammer into the museum" the drawing of the Oldenburg Horn is shown in the exhibition "Spätgotik. Aufbruch in die Neuzeit" (“Late Gothic. The Birth of Modernity” / Gemäldegalerie).

This replica from the 18th century shows the head of a warrior together with a dedicatory inscription of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II. An eye stone, which was presumably made of onyx in the 6th century BC for the effigy of Marduk, the god of the city of Babylon, probably served as a model. 

The replica is the first object in the Berlin collections with cuneiform writing and is often referred to in the literature as the "Eye of Nebuchadnezzar". It has become quite famous beyond professional circles.

When the replica of the Babylonian eye stone came to Berlin, it was part of the collection of the Prussian scholar and diplomat Philipp von Stosch. This was one of the most important collections of gems in the 18th century and is part of the foundation stock of the Altes Museum. In the Stosch Collection, the replica was situated in the vicinity of a wide range of mainly Roman and Greek gems.

This was similar to the first 150 years of its Berlin history. For a long time, the "Eye of Nebuchadnezzar" first belonged to the Antiquities Department of the Kunstkammer here, which in turn was primarily devoted to Greek and Roman pieces. After 1830, the replica was shown in the Antiquarium of the newly-founded Altes Museum.

It was not until the second half of the 19th century that interest in archaeological finds from the Ancient Near East increased in Berlin, after spectacular finds had delighted the museum public in London and Paris. Finally, in 1899, the Vorderasiatisches Museum was founded, in which the replica is kept today. 

The Berlin history of this object indicates that, in addition to artisan craftwork items, the Kunstkammer contained a wide variety of objects from different fields of knowledge, whose relevance had been reassessed time and time again.

In the intervention "Objects on the move. From the Kunstkammer into the museum" the "Eye of Nebuchadnezzar" is shown in the Vorderasiatisches Museum.

This small lacquer cabinet from the first half of the 19th century comes from Japan and was presumably made for the European market. Lacquerware from East Asia had been very fashionable in Europe since the 17th century, where it decorated the houses of the nobility and royalty.

There was presumably East Asian furniture in the Berlin Kunstkammer similar to the Japanese cabinet as early as 1700. This is indicated by the report of an anonymous Venetian about his visit to the Kunstkammer at the beginning of the 18th century. He talks about “small Chinese cabinets in various forms” here – in a way which was typically imprecise at that time for describing non-European objects.

Furniture like the Japanese lacquer cabinet was possibly also a model for the cabinets made by the Berlin lacquer artist Gérard Dagly in the 1690s, in which the coins of the Kunstkammer were kept. One of these cabinets can be found in the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Köpenick today.

In the 19th century, the holdings of the Kunstkammer were allocated little by little to the newly-founded museums. In 1886, the East Asian objects found their way into the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde, today’s Ethnologisches Museum.

Whereas some East Asian objects from the Kunstkammer remained in the Museum für Völkerkunde (today’s Ethnologisches Museum), others moved on further to the Museum für Asiatische Kunst. One criterion seemed to have been, whether the objects were export goods produced for European buyers or "authentic" works created for the East Asian market. Thus, the small lacquer cabinet remained in the Völkerkundemuseum, whereas the picnic basket in the form of a pumpkin, made in Japan around 1700, found its way into the Museum für Asiatische Kunst. The allocation could, however, not always be reconstructed.

In the intervention "Objects on the move. From the Kunstkammer into the museum" the small cabinet is shown in the Kunstgewerbemuseum.