Journal of the History of Collections

Aims & Scope

The Journal of the History of Collections is dedicated to the investigation and documentation of all aspects of collecting activity.

Its interests range as far back as the earliest Renaissance cabinets and beyond – both medieval and Roman period collections have received attention in the past.

No limit is set on more recent practice, so that essays on later twentieth-century collectors have featured regularly.

The range of subject-matter treated in the Journal is equally catholic: the earliest universal collections and those that came to engage with more specialized subject areas receive equal attention.

Indeed, it is a fundamental tenet of editorial policy that papers in whatever specialized discipline should be presented in a manner that renders them accessible to the whole readership – widespread in terms both of geography and of subject interest – and are not addressed to a single community.

From its inception the Journal has sought to provide a platform from which researchers can speak to each other across disciplinary boundaries: it is well known that the mechanisms of collecting and classification developed in natural history, for example, came to influence practices amongst collectors and curators in the fine arts and in ethnography, hence every opportunity is taken here to illustrate and to illuminate the common ground that exists between all those whose researches were founded on material collections.

More theoretically oriented papers on the history and theory of museums and museum practice are likely to be better placed elsewhere.

View Aims & Scope

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Metrics & Ranking

Impact Factor

Year	Value
2025	0.2
2024	0.20

SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

Year	Value
2024	0.155

Quartile

Year	Value
2024	Q2

h-index

Year	Value
2024	17

Journal Rank

Year	Value
2024	24134

Journal Citation Indicator

Year	Value
2024	22

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Abstracting & Indexing

Journal is indexed in leading academic databases, ensuring global visibility and accessibility of our peer-reviewed research.

• Scopus
• Google Scholar
• Web of Science

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Subjects & Keywords

Journal’s research areas, covering key disciplines and specialized sub-topics in Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences, designed to support cutting-edge academic discovery.

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Most Cited Articles

The Most Cited Articles section features the journal's most impactful research, based on citation counts. These articles have been referenced frequently by other researchers, indicating their significant contribution to their respective fields.

• THE MUSEUM: ITS CLASSICAL ETYMOLOGY AND RENAISSANCE GENEALOGY

  Citation: 64

  Authors: P.

• 'Indian' objects in Medici and Austrian-Habsburg inventories: A case-study of the sixteenth-century term

  Citation: 19

  Authors: J., L.

• Wonders of America: The curiosity cabinet as a site of representation and knowledge

  Citation: 19

  Authors: I.

• The cabinet of King Serfoji of Tanjore: A European collection in early nineteenth-century India

  Citation: 16

  Authors: I. V.

• ‘Specimens Distributed’

  Citation: 16

  Authors: Caroline, Felix

• THE PALACE OF LAUSUS AT CONSTANTINOPLE AND ITS COLLECTION OF ANCIENT STATUES

  Citation: 16

  Authors: C., M., E. D.

• Nation-building, collecting and the politics of display

  Citation: 15

  Authors: Mark

• Giovanni Battista Belzoni's exhibition of the reconstructed tomb of Pharaoh Seti I in 1821

  Citation: 15

  Authors: S. M.

• The Ashmolean as a museum of natural history, 1683-1860

  Citation: 11

  Authors: A.

• When nothing remains: anatomical collections, the ethics of stewardship and the meanings of absence

  Citation: 11

  Authors: Tinne, Veronique

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