Henri Martin (trainer)
Henri Martin (born January 10, 1793 in Marseille , † April 8, 1882 in Rotterdam ) was an animal showman and tamer who was famous all over Europe and who became zoo director in Rotterdam after completing his artistic career.
Live and act
As an adolescent Henri Martin learned in the circus Guillaume in Livorno the vaulting and worked since 1817 as a trick rider in Cirque Blondin . In 1819 he founded his own equestrian group. A short time later he married Gertrude van Aken, co-owner of the menagerie van Aken , run by her brother , which Martin had met in Nuremberg . There he performed the first dressage of his tiger Atir that he had become known for . After his own menagerie was closed , he again hired himself out to Blondin and appeared there as an art rider in pantomimes to Schiller's robbers . After an accident during a performance in 1822, he traveled through Europe with his brother-in-law's menagerie between 1823 and 1829 and became famous for his dealings with big cats. "I try", as Martin put it, "to unravel the character of each individual animal, to meet its inclinations."
In 1829 he accepted an invitation from the zoologist Cuvier to Paris, where he inspired Honoré de Balzac to write his story Une passion dans le désert , which appeared in 1830. Not only the writer but also the society at the court of Charles X attended Martin's performances in Paris. Martin's plan for a zoorama in which wild animals would serve as models for artists and demonstrate their usefulness to the public was thwarted by the July Revolution . In April 1831 he showed a pantomime at the Cirque Olympique in Paris, Les lions de Mysore , in which two of his lions, Charlotte and Coburg , played. During a performance of this program in the Drury Lane Theater in London in 1833 he suffered another serious injury, as a result of which he withdrew from the life of a showman.
Martin sold his animals to his brother-in-law Cornelius van Aken in 1837, settled in Rotterdam and, as a wealthy privateer, devoted himself to growing roses. He advised the Amsterdam Zoo , which was founded in 1838, and in 1842 supported Martin Lichtenstein in the preparations for the establishment of a zoological garden in Berlin by teaching him about predatory diseases and instructing him in their treatment. In 1853 Henri Martin was appointed to the board of directors of the Rotterdam Zoo , and he had also been an adviser when it was founded. In 1870 he finally retired into private life.
literature
- Annelore Rieke-Müller, Lothar Dittrich : Out and about with wild animals. Wandering menageries between instruction and commerce 1750–1850 . Basilisken-Presse, Marburg 1999; P. 113f. ISBN 3-925-34752-6
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ A. Lehmann: Classic of the carnivore training . In: H. Dathe (Ed.): The Leipzig Zoological Garden. A place of science . Leipzig, 1961; S. 115. Quoted from: Annelore Rieke-Müller, Lothar Dittrich: On the way with wild animals. Wandering menageries between instruction and commerce 1750-1850 (1999), p. 111
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Martin, Henri |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French tamer and founder of the zoo |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 10, 1793 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Marseille |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 8, 1882 |
| Place of death | Rotterdam |