the apothecary museum inside heidelberg castle was truly one of a kind. there are several old dispensaries on display for example and also vintage labs. furthermore you can take a look at the massive collection of antique medicine jars & remedies. the dispensaries are originals from the renaissance, baroque & biedermeier eras and give you a beautiful insight into the appearance of apothecaries of yore. before we entered the actual museum we had a look at a little art exhibition as well, which was a collaboration between several artists, many of them belonging to the sinti and roma. the main theme was about freedom & exemption of limitations.
modern & vintage art.
wonderful art by lita cabellut. please do check out her website, she does some fantastic work.
installation by daniel baker.
gabi jiménez is the creator of this piece and the overwhelming amount of details is what i loved most about this. oh, and saturn wanted to say hi, too, while he's gnawing on some baby's feet. i love the juxtaposition of old versus new art.
apparently he ate the kid's face already. didn't know saturn was a cannibal.
absolute stunning dispensary.
this turtle was a votive offering for gynecological diseases. the turtle is often related to the womb of a mother and therefore it was mainly used for these purposes. in it there are also demonic elements represented, which by popular belief were connected to the female organ.
a little less elaborate dispensary, albeit it's still pretty excessive.
beautiful collection of medicine jars & the medicine inside them.
the sandfish is actually a skink and in old times was used in powdered form for several diseases.
mandrake manikins. these were used for several purposes,´. they were supposed to help you overcoming any issue you were having, for example being talismans for easy births, good fertility, against sickness or bringing luck in trials.
deadly poison collection.
i am not sure if i'm correct, but my best guess to what this little illustration is about is that it's a table of elements, even though a rather rudimentary one.
this apothecary blew my mind.
a very rustic take on dispensaries. i loved this, especially for the exotic animals hanging around here. can you see the blowfish & crocodile?
a beautiful material & herb chamber. basically the workplace of any pharmacist in the old times.
better view of that mindblowing dispensary.
a historic first-aid kit. quite the beauty, right? but also quite bulky.
apothecary signs. they used these statues on house facades to show there was an apothecary or chemist behind the door.
unicorn love.
really cool laboratory. i'm guess doctor frankenstein would've loved it here.
everything around here felt like magic to me.
i mean, look at these devices? how do they work, what did they look like while they were still in function, all kinds of questions pop up in my mind while looking at these.
beautiful glassware and pottery.
another famous object on exhibition ( not in the apothecary museum, though ) is this huge ass wine barrel, which could hold up to 200.000 litres of wine. it was only filled three times, though, because it atually leaked, haha.
a smaller, but still huge wine barrel was in the hall next to the heidelberg tun.
next post: heidelberg city.
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