Curate your own cabinet and discover your collector archetype

In a tradition stretching back to the Italian Renaissance, the wealthy and well-travelled compiled all manner of trinkets, treasures, works of art and scientific specimens into curiosity cabinets. Our interactive invites you to do the same.

We partnered with the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art to develop an interactive Cabinet of Curiosities, installed in the Morgan Memorial Building. Four interactive touchscreens allow visitors to explore over one hundred objects, appreciate their details, and collect those of interest. They then create their own curiosity cabinets by arranging objects, paintings, and other artifacts within a room of wonders space. Based on their arrangement, the activity pairs the visitor with a historic persona, such as a Prince or Naturalist, revealing information about the historical context of curiosity cabinets.