Georges Meyer-Darcis

Georges Meyer-Darcis , full name Georg Gottlieb August Meyer-Darcis (born September 12, 1860 in Wohlen , Canton Aargau ; † January 3, 1913 in Florence , resident in Ützwil near Sarmenstorf ) was a Swiss entrepreneur , botanist , entomologist and collector .

life and work

Meyer-Darcis was the son of a world-famous straw goods manufacturer (Sogin & Meyer). From 1875 to 1878 he attended the technical department at the Aarau Cantonal School . Encouraged by his teacher and naturalist Fritz Mühlberg (1840–1915), Meyer-Darcis and his friend collected rare plants and insects, Samuel Doebeli , who came from Seon and later became an entomologist .

Meyer-Darcis then completed a commercial apprenticeship in a Geneva bank and collected insects in his free time. He was encouraged by the curator of the Entomological Collections at the University of Geneva , Emil Frey-Gessner (1826–1917). Meyer-Darcis later bought Gessner-Frey's valuable collection and donated it to the Swiss Entomological Society.

Back in his father's business, Meyer-Darcis traveled to almost all European countries and made contacts with other insect collectors. Throughout his life he was in contact with the most important dealers of European and exotic Beetles.

Meyer-Darcis married Margaritha Josefa Darcis (born June 18, 1859) in Belgium. Meyer-Darcis took over his father's business on his own account in 1890. The business success enabled him to acquire other collections. Such is the "Haurysche Carabiden (ground beetle) collection". Some parts of his beetle collection were sold to the French entomologist René Oberthür and are now in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris .

Meyer-Darcis put on an almost complete collection of peacock spiders ( Saturniidae ), which he later donated to the Natural History Museum in Bern . He also acquired the worldwide coleoptera and plant collections, including one from Johann Luzi Krättli (1812–1903), which he bequeathed to the Botanical Museum of the University of Zurich . For 50,000 Swiss francs he also bought the then famous Rothschild Collection, solely for the purpose of completing his own collection.

Meyer-Darcis was a member of various natural research societies. For example, the Aargau Natural Research Society, the Swiss, Belgian and English entomological societies.

When business went worse from 1908, Meyer-Darcis sold his shares to a business partner and founded a new business with his son. When his wife died he married Alfonsa Pacini. The marriage did not last long, however, as she died of pneumonia.

Most of his beetle collection was sold to Vienna while Meyer-Darcis was still alive . After his death, the remaining parts came to the well-known insect wholesalers Staudinger and Bang-Haas in Germany.

literature

• Mathias Hefti-Gysi: Georges Meyer-Darcis (Gottlieb August) (1860-1913) . In: Argovia , annual journal of the Historical Society of the Canton of Aargau, Vol. 68–69, 1958, pp. 532–533 ( digitized version ).