A cabinet of curiosities has made its way onto Washburn’s campus and is available for viewing this Friday, Oct. 24 from 4-6 p.m. in Mulvane Art Museum.

The term ‘Cabinets of Curiosities’ originated from the idea of rooms, as opposed to the furniture in which it seems they were named for, in which 16th to 17th century European aristocrats collected scientific and ethnographic artifacts and set them up for display. The idea was that the items were unrecognized or unable to be categorized so they captured the curiosity of the person who first observed them. Objects tended to fall into the modern day categories of natural history, geology, ethnography, archaeology, historical objects, religious relics, works of art or antiques.

The Washburn exhibition will include old and new, as the cabinets of the past would have contained. They will exhibit everything from football helmets from 1904 to wooden candlesticks recovered from the 1966 tornado. Different versions of Ichabod are included in this exhibition as well and the art center promises that there’s going to be something on display for everyone and every taste so anyone who has their own curiosity about interesting objects from the past should plan to attend.