Dealing gems, knowing nature: the collections of Antwerp goldsmiths

Ever since the sixteenth century, Antwerp had been an important centre for the trade in gemstones. The Scheldt-city counted a great number of goldsmiths, jewellers, and grinders of precious stones, whose products were greatly admired by contemporaries. This paper tells the story of the collections of those Antwerp artisans who were experts in the trade and processing of gemstones. Based on probate inventories, it deals with their personal collections, with the gems for sale in their shops (unworked, grinded, or mounted into new objects), but also how these objects in turn became part of other Antwerp collections. Gems had been part of collections ever since the earliest princely treasuries. As gems became part of collections, some were elevated from the domain of utility; they gained a new status as meaningful objects (so-called ‘semiophores’). Especially in the case of gems, there was a fluid transition between utilitarian objects and objects imbued with meaning. This paper further challenges the traditional dichotomy between utilitarian objects and semiophores, by arguing that in early seventeenth-century Antwerp, it was precisely the practical-material knowledge about gems, which made them beloved and meaningful collectables. Practical knowledge earlier restricted to the workshops of artisans, was now ‘collected’ by the knowledgeable in the from of objects that were considered to be transmitters of knowledge: the gems themselves, but also imitation gems, artefacts with gems, tools, recipe books, engravings, and paintings