The idea of the curiosity cabinet goes back to the 15th century, when collectors of (mostly) small objects, whether botanical specimens, religious relics, precious objects, or whatever, would store them in drawers in small- to medium-sized wooden cabinets, which could even be transported with them if needed. They can therefore be regarded as mini-museums. Because the items to be stored would vary in size and shape, cabinet-makers designed them with drawers and shelves of different dimensions.

Cabinets were kept by all sorts of people. Physicians collected anatomical specimens, merchants acquired samples of merchandise from their trading partners, travelers to distant lands used them to store the weird and wonderful things that they brought back with them, amateur fossil-hunters kept their finds in them, royalty used larger cabinets to make collections of weapons and armor. It is highly probable that many of the "curiosities" were faked objects, such as two-headed toads and the like, made and sold to gullible travelers by local traders who could spot a market opportunity a mile off!

These were private collections, but a collector would often be happy to show off the contents of his cabinet to guests who called at his home. This function developed especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, when wealthier families tended to send their sons off on the "Grand Tour", and they would return with objects that needed to be preserved and shown off. The curiosity cabinet was ideal for the smaller objects, and the talents of cabinet-makers such as Sheraton, Chippendale and Hepplewhite sometimes turned to producing fine pieces of craftsmanship for this purpose, which would stand in the libraries of the grand houses of wealthy people.

The curiosity cabinet was a European invention, and it was especially popular in Germany, where the term "Wunderkammern" or "cabinet of wonders" was coined. A true Wunderkammern was, therefore, a repository of the unusual and strange, and needs to be distinguished from a simple set of drawers for keeping everyday things neat and tidy.

One important aspect of a curiosity cabinet is that it enabled items to be sorted by type, with the drawers labeled appropriately. This was therefore a form of classification. Much as a scholar's books would be sorted by subject on his shelves, his collection of artifacts would be sorted according to the drawers in his cabinet. The curiosity cabinet was therefore part of a much larger development

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