Goethe elephant

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The young elephant in the Kassel menagerie, sepia drawing by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder . J. (1742-1808), published 1820

The so-called Goethe elephant (* around 1771 in India ; † 1780 in Kassel ) was an Indian elephant that had lived in the menagerie of Landgrave Friedrich II in Kassel since 1773 . The animal, very popular with the public, died in an accident in the Karlsaue in 1780 . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe conducted studies on the intermaxillary bone on his skull . The more than 200 year old skeleton is exhibited on the second floor of the Natural History Museum in the Ottoneum in Kassel. It was one of the first large mammal skeletons to be prepared.

Life and Death of the Elephant

The Goethe Elephant 1777. Ink drawing by Johann Heinrich Ramberg (1763–1840) with the young draftsman

The young elephant came to Kassel in 1773 at the age of about two as a wedding present from the House of Orange to Friedrich II. no name has come down to us. In the menagerie below the Bellevue terrace in the Karlsaue, the elephant lived, as is reported, a "hall in a house of his own", chained to his hind feet. When the weather was nice, a long chain allowed him to walk outside. He had devoured vast amounts of food and liquid, on some days "up to 20 buckets of water in a row". Some “skills” are also reported, for example the elephant made “bows to the right and left with those kneeling in front” when they were handed bread.

It is also reported that attempts were made to bring the elephant onto the stage for an opera performance. While the also appearing camels followed the direction nicely, the elephant was so unruly that it was renounced. He was used as a workhorse in the Auepark. He died in 1780 when he fell down the slope of the Karlsaue in an accident.

Another version about the death of the elephant can be read in the 1916/17 edition of "Mitteilungen zur Hessische Geschichte" (MHG) . There it says:

The garden of Prince Maximilian, now the court bleacher, has been the menagerie since 1764. The main attraction there was a young elephant, whose elephant house is now in the pheasantry at Wilhelmshöhe. His end was very tragic. He had been used in the opera house to furnish an opera house and on the way back he was taken across the Bellevue in the evening, where he made a mistake and rolled down the embankment.

The remains of the elephant were dissected and prepared by the anatomist Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring . An official section report has not survived. In later, personal notes Soemmerring noted the following memory, published in 1844, fourteen years after his death:

The Landgrave had helpers, lifting trees etc. from the arsenal approved for dismantling . [...] The skeleton should hopefully turn out well and grace the theater. Unfortunately the putrefaction from the warmth was so terrible that the brain overflowed and was so hot that it smoked. The body and stomach shattered with a terrible roar after the incised integuments .

The landgrave's collection of natural objects, housed after 1690 in the Ottoneum, a building previously used as a theater, was the first in Northern Europe to receive the entire specimen of a large mammal.

Goethe and the elephant skull

Skull of a young elephant. Copper engraving after Goethe by Johann David Schubert (1761–1822), Illustrator des Werther

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe met the natural scientist Soemmerring and his collection during a visit to Kassel in 1783 on the occasion of his second trip to the Harz Mountains. He was very interested in the elephant preparation and borrowed the skull in 1784 for his anatomical studies. At the beginning of the year Goethe had already informed Herder and Frau von Stein of the discovery of a human intermaxillary bone; now he was looking for objects to compare.

In a letter dated May 14, 1784, Goethe wrote to Soemmerring:

"For me kommunicierten Camper's drawings I Dancke on the best, and mögte you ask for a new complacency. The zoology gives me many a pleasant hour and you could increase it very much if you only wanted to lend me the skull of your elephant skeleton for four weeks, it should be kept in the most conscientious. "

The skull was sent to Goethe in Eisenach at the beginning of June , where the poet, in his capacity as Weimar Privy Councilor, stayed for several weeks on business. In a letter to Frau von Stein dated June 7, 1784, he confessed that he had "hidden the skull in the innermost room of the room" so that people would "not consider him mad". He had made his landlady in Eisenach believe that “it was porcelain in the enormous box”. On June 9, 1784, Goethe thanked Soemmerring in a letter and, combined with the wish to extend the loan period, indicated the space for the skull a little more generously:

“By sending me the elephant skull, you gave me great pleasure. He arrived happily, and I keep him in a little cabinet , where I secretly dedicate to him the moments that I can break off because I mustn't let it be noticed that such a monster has sneaked into the house. My only wish would be to be able to take it with you to Weimar, since you should have it back by the beginning of September at the latest, if you don't need it earlier. "

On June 10th, Goethe started a hike in the mountains. A week later, on June 17th, again from Eisenach, he reported to Frau von Stein: "I'll take the elephant skull with me to Weimar." On June 19th, he returned there.

The studies on the intermaxillary bone of the Kassel elephant skull initially led to a lively correspondence between Goethe and Soemmerring, who increasingly rejected the results of the poet's further anatomical research, whereupon the correspondence broke off. Goethe withheld the publication of his studies On the Intermediate Jaw of Humans and Animals for decades; they appeared in 1820 as part of a series of publications in which Goethe published his collected scientific essays from 1817 to 1824.

Since then, the Kassel elephant skeleton has been called the Goethe elephant .

literature

  • Stephan Oettermann : The elephant curiosity. An Elephantographia Curiosa. Syndikat, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-8108-0203-4 , pp. 143-146.
  • Rolf Siemon: The Asian Elephant in Kassel - Goethe's anatomical studies and the importance of the rediscovery of the intermaxillary bone in humans. In: Philippia. Volume 15, 3 (2012), pp. 241-265 (PDF; 1.1 MB) .
  • Rolf Siemon: Soemmerring, Forster and Goethe - "natural history encounters" in Göttingen and Kassel. Folklore Seminar of the University of Göttingen, Göttingen 1999, p. 175 (PDF; 2.31 MB) .
  • Manfred Wenzel: The "Goethe Elephant" in Kassel, 1773–1993. In: Manfred Wenzel (ed.): Samuel Thomas Soemmering in Kassel (1779–1784). Contributions to the history of science during the Goethe era. G. Fischer, Stuttgart / Jena / New York 1994, ISBN 3-437-11626-6 , pp. 257-312.

Web links

Commons : Goethe-Elefant  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kassel 2010: Kassel has been the center of a network of European relations for centuries ( memento from September 19, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Friedrich Justinian von Günderode: Letters from a traveler about the current state of Cassel described with all freedom . Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 1781; Pp. 69-72; quoted in: Oettermann (1982) p. 144
  3. ^ Carl Scherer: The landgrave menageries in and around Cassel . In: Casseler Allgemeine Zeitung , 1890, No. 91ff., 4th continuation; according to Oettermann (1982) p. 144
  4. ^ Messages to the members of the Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies. Born in 1916/17. Kassel 1917. p. 28
  5. ^ Rudolph Wagner: Sömmering's life and literary work . Leipzig 1844; quoted from Oettermann (1982) p. 145
  6. ^ Franz Dumont (Ed.): Samuel Thomas Soemmerring. Correspondence 1761/65 - October 1784. Samuel Thomas Soemmerring, Werke, Volume 18. Stuttgart et al. 1996, p. 456. After lit. Rolf Siemon: Soemmerring, Forster and Goethe.
  7. ↑ Goethe's letters. Volume I. 1764-1786 . Verlag CH Beck: Munich 4th ed. 1988