“Mr. Henckel’s Glorious Cabinet”: A History in Contexts (At the Origins of Russia’s First University Museum)

The history of the first collection of the first museum of the first university in Russia (Moscow University), which was donated to it by the Demidov brothers in 1757, is examined in several aspects: as an object that served to transfer scientific knowledge from Western Europe to Russia, as a marker of social identity during the movement of the social elevator, as an asset whose transfer reflected the relationship between the heirs of A.N. Demidov, as an episode in the history of collecting, and as an example of the transformation of the function of an object when it is transferred to a museum, leading to the emergence of a sum of meanings.