Performance and The Body in the Early Modern Antwerp Kunstkammer: A Case Study

A portrait of the Antwerp merchant Duarte family, painted by Gonzales Coques around 1650, features the composer Leonora Duarte surrounded by instruments and objects from her family’s Kunstkammer. In the Duarte home, like in that of many other merchant musicians, performances would have taken place in these galleries, amongst international visitors and the objects in the family collection. The painting’s resemblance to the Antwerp-based genre of paintings depicting and advertising Kunstkammern signals that Duarte, too, is a crucial object of display, a fact that sheds light on the pride of place that high culture, musical performance, and she, herself, held in the family. Material analysis of the Kunstkammer can provide critical insight into the education, social standing, or aspirations of its owners. The painting is thus a testament to the family’s investment in empirical observation, as well as proof of the specific connections between observation and social status that are encouraged by the semi-public space of domestic performance.

An analysis of Duarte’s Sinfonia No. 3 as a “musical Kunstkammer” reveals how points of difference are displayed in ways that resemble the internationality of the collector’s cabinet. Reading the score as a visual artifact, I discuss how Duarte’s juxtaposition of homophony with imitation creates space in her work from which to observe surroundings, notably setting other musical elements in relief. My performative analysis thus investigates how the object of sound moves from the musical score to Duarte’s body, complicating our knowledge of early modern practices of collecting and display.