ABSTRACT
Early modern European humanist studioli and princely Kunst- und Wunderkammern almost invariably contained small, perfectly formed plants and animals moulded in metal by the technique of 'casting from life'. The stunningly lifelike objects created by life casting encouraged conversations in Renaissance Kunstkammern about the interplay of human art and created nature. In playing on the relationship between nature and art, life casts in Renaissance collections served several purposes: they could provide proof of rare and odd natural phenomena, such as the crippled and seven-fingered hands of peasants and the misshapen lemons cast in plaster in the Bavarian Wittelsbach Kunstkammer. The practice of using reptiles associated with generation and metamorphosis in order to capture the appearance of life, or life casting, highlighted how inseparable were the processes of nature and the practices of human art.
