Lismore Castle’s art gallery celebrates 20th anniversary with an exhibition dedicated to the kunstkammer – The Art Newspaper

Ireland’s Lismore Castle, built in 1185 by King John on the site of a seventh-century monastery, could be said to serve as a kunstkammer—or cabinet of curiosities—of sorts. It boasts one of Ireland’s finest collections of art, furniture and craftwork and a banqueting hall designed by the Gothic Revival architect Augustus Pugin. The formal terraced gardens were created by the gardener and engineer Sir Joseph Paxton and filled with exotic species such as magnolias, camelias and rhododendrons in the Victorian era, though its earliest sections date back 400 years.

The estate is now owned by the Duke of Devonshire, whose family acquired it in 1753 when Lady Charlotte Boyle, the 4th Earl of Cork’s daughter, married William Cavendish, the 4th Duke of Devonshire. Around 20 years ago, the son of the duke, William Cavendish, and his wife Laura were entrusted with managing the castle. Both art lovers, in 2005 they converted the west wing into a gallery known as Lismore Castle Arts, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

To mark the occasion, the couple invited the well-known Irish writer and decorative arts specialist Robert O’Byrne to curate an exhibition; he came up with the idea of an exhibition dedicated to the theme of the kunstkammer, a form of museum in which rare and priceless objects—both natural and manmade—are exhibited together. Rather than “reflecting the human condition or observations or the state of the world today”, the aim of Kunstkammer (until 26 October) is to “entertain, delight and educate”, O’Byrne says. “Periodically, there’s a wave of excitement about kunstkammers—people rediscover them, and then they fade away again. Maybe this is the start of a rediscovery, at least in Ireland.”

The eclectic mix of works on show range from a pair of antique Chinese teak chairs to a 17th-century Italian ebonised cabinet and a taxidermy tableau from around 1900 featuring boxing red squirrels. At the entrance to the gallery is a copy of Ferrante Imperato’s book, Dell’Historia Naturale, loaned by Marsh’s Library in Dublin. The volume, which documents the Italian apothecary and naturalist’s collection dating from the late 16th century, includes the oldest engraving of a kunstkammer. At the more contemporary end, there are dangling sculptures by Sarah Lucas, a dark mirrored installation by Edward Rollitt and small pieces by Urs Fischer installed in a landing cabinet usually housed in Lismore Castle.

Irish artists are well represented, too. Dublin-born Sasha Sykes, whose practice is informed by where she now lives at the foothills of the Wicklow mountains, has created a new work, Belonging (2025), a travel chest made of clear resin, with flora gathered from Lismore gardens cast within the resin.

“If you’re talking about nature and the environment, Lismore gardens are the ultimate kunstkammer, it’s literally a collection of curious trees and plants and things from around the world, like the magnolias from the Himalayas in the lower garden,” she says. The artist notes how she picked “old-fashioned plants like little daisies and wild strawberries” from the upper garden, which is around 400 years old and is more formal. “I find it fascinating how humans use plants, how they plant them for their use and for their own pleasure. It’s such a form of control,” Sykes adds.

She scoured the castle for a travel chest to cast but couldn’t find one—an indication, Sykes thinks, of how the property is not inhabited by the Cavendishes year-round. “It’s a semi-functional object with lots of layers to it, which mirrors Lismore Castle and the whole history of the place and the garden,” the artist says.

Dorothy Cross, who was born in Cork and is based in Connemara, is showing two pillows dating from 2022 carved out of Damascus rose marble in the show. Based on Cross’s own childhood pillow, each one has an ear nestling at its centre, where a head might lay. “This particular marble is so flesh like and beautiful,” Cross says.

The artist chose Damascus rose, which hails from Syria, from offcuts of marble found in the backyard of a studio in Carrara in Italy. “It’s like a candy store, with all these bits of leftover stuff, almost like the scars of usage,” Cross says. The fact that the marble comes from Syria also speaks to “notions of displacement and geology”, she adds. “They are really about sleep, unconsciousness, our relationship to time and the earth and fossilisation.”

Cross thinks her earlier work particularly relates to the idea of the kunstkammer. In the early 1990s, she produced a series of works using cow udders, which were shown in the exhibition Bad Girls at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London in 1993. “It was a great gaggle of women,” Cross recalls. “In those days, the cow udder was certainly would come under that idea [of the kunstkammer].”

As for her marble sculptures, Cross is “less easy” about calling them “curiosities”, mainly because “they are beautiful”, she says. “But, like Baudelaire said, beauty is always strange.”