Levinus Vincent was a rich Dutch damask

Damask

Damask is a reversible figured fabric of silk, wool, linen, cotton, or synthetic fibers, with a pattern formed by weaving. Damasks are woven with one warp yarn and one weft yarn, usually with the pattern in warp-faced satin weave and the ground in weft-faced or sateen weave...

 merchant of the Anabaptist

Anabaptist

Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....

 faith. He collected naturalia (shells, dry and wet preparations, and insects) and artificialia - (ethnography

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

, paintings and drawings of flowers). He turned the passion of Jan Swammerdam

Jan Swammerdam

Jan Swammerdam was a Dutch biologist and microscopist. His work on insects demonstrated that the various phases during the life of an insect—egg, larva, pupa, and adult—are different forms of the same animal. As part of his anatomical research, he carried out experiments on muscle contraction...

 for insects into one of the most fashionable activieties of late seventeenth-century Amsterdam, preserving and displaying great quantities of insects in new ways.

Levinus Vincent aimed at the non-Latin-speaking public, printing the catalogue of his collection in both Dutch and French - Wondertooneel der Nature (Wonder Theater of Nature), giving details of all the objects on display. This catalogue sold for three guilder plus a tip or entrance fee of two guilder. He had fixed hours for its visitors. His visitor book (from 1705 to 1737) includes at least 3,500 entries, including Peter the Great.

Levinus Vincent first lived in Amsterdam, and in 1705 he moved to Haarlem. After the death of his second wife in 1715, he remarried a woman whp did not like his collection or hobby. Vincent moved to the Hague

The Hague

The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

, hoping to find a buyer among its many diplomats for his cabinet

Cabinet of curiosities

A cabinet of curiosities was an encyclopedic collection in Renaissance Europe of types of objects whose categorical boundaries were yet to be defined. They were also known by various names such as Cabinet of Wonder, and in German Kunstkammer or Wunderkammer...

. He corresponded with such friends as James Petiver

James Petiver

James Petiver was a London apothecary, a Fellow of the Royal Society as well as London's informal Temple Coffee House Botany Club, famous for his study of botany and entomology.-Life:...

 and Hans Sloane

Hans Sloane

Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet, PRS was an Ulster-Scot physician and collector, notable for bequeathing his collection to the British nation which became the foundation of the British Museum...

 in England.

Sources

• Driessen, J. (1996) Tsaar Peter de Grote en zijn Amsterdamse vrienden. In samenwerking met het Amsterdams Historisch Museum.
• Freedberg, D & J. de Vries (eds) (1991) Science, Commerce and Art. In: Art in History, History in Art, p. 379, 386.
• Vincent, L. (1715) Wondertooneel der Natuur, ofte een Korte Beschrijvinge zo van Bloedelooze, Zwemmende, Vliegende, Kruipende, en Viervoetige Geklaauwde Eijerleggende Dieren ... bevat in de Kabinetten van Levinus Vincent, adorned with a handsome title-page designed by Romein de Hooghe.

External links

• Digital books (4) at the Universities of Strasbourg
• Kunstkammer The Wunderkammer