Godeffroy Museum

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The Godeffroy Museum was a natural history, scientific museum in Hamburg that existed from 1861 to 1885.

history

In 1861 the Godeffroy Museum opened in the modest premises of the office building of the Joh. Ces company. Godeffroy & Sohn at Alten Wandrahm 26. From 1876, two floors were rented in the opposite building, Alter Wandrahm 29, with the lower one for the zoological and the upper one for the anthropological - ethnological collection from the South Seas. The zoological department presented birds including nests and eggs as well as invertebrates such as B. mussels , snails and beetles. There was no space for fish, reptiles, amphibians or mammals. The anthropological one showed weapons, equipment, jewelry, clothing etc. as well as skulls, skeletons and plaster casts of them. The museum stayed in Alten Wandrahm 29 until it was sold.

Old wall frame, on the right the entrance to the Godeffroy Museum

From the beginning of the 19th century, natural sciences and discoveries in distant lands met with great and broad interest. The Hamburg merchant Peter Friedrich Röding opened a museum for objects from nature and art as early as 1804 . Before the middle of the century, on December 1, 1844, a natural history museum had opened in Hamburg, which was housed in the city ​​library . The exhibits came from the collections of the Johanneum and the Academic Gymnasium and the scientific association that was founded in 1837. More than 45 years after its founding, the natural history museum was only able to move into its own premises in 1891. In the middle of the 19th century there were just under a dozen natural produce stores in Hamburg whose owners had their own collections.

Comparable to plant hunters had the Hamburg merchant, ship owner and owner of the company Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & son Johan Cesar Godeffroy hired explorers. The zoologist Eduard Graeffe was hired in 1861 through Heinrich Adolph Meyer as the first permanent research traveler. He traveled the South Seas for more than ten years. In order to meet the demand for natural produce on the one hand and to increase the supply on the other, more explorers were hired over time.

The captains of the ships were also required to bring material from the voyages to Australia and the South Seas. The names of the (Kauffahrtei-) captains who collected were known and emerged: Jürgen Heinrich Witt, HW Wendt, HDA Brück, Alfred Tetens and Georg Levison .

In 1863 the natural produce dealer Johannes Schmeltz was hired as custodian . Over the years, CA Pöhl joined as an assistant. The task of the Custos was, among other things, the data collected by the explorers and landed in Hamburg animals, plants and anthropological objects to recognized scientists, universities throughout Europe and members of scientific associations to expedite to have to describe and scientifically documented. They were then sent back to Hamburg.

This approach brought advantages for the scientists and the museum: the unknown was described for the first time and the Godeffroy Museum was able to refer to relevant documentation. This explains, among other things, the high level of awareness. Finally, the materials were integrated into the museum's collection, the greater part was offered for sale, usually via the catalog (s) of the duplicates available for sale, and sometimes via advertisements. A small episode that was published in the newspaper of the Entomological Association in Stettin shows that things did not always go smoothly.

After the end of the activities of Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn in December 1879, the museum continued to exist because it was no longer part of the company's assets. The owner was Wilhelm Godeffroy , a son of Carl Godeffroy , who received the museum in return for a claim. A continuation of the museum in the way it had hitherto cultivated had become impossible because the explorers had to stop their activities. Another fact literally stood in the way of the continuation, because from 1886 the houses in the old wall frame began to be “laid down”. The Senate of the City of Hamburg decided to join the German customs area and build the future Speicherstadt there.

For these reasons, the lengthy negotiations over the sale of parts of the collection to various museums were not concluded until 1885. A large number of the exhibits have been preserved to this day. Numerous pieces are exhibited in the Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig as part of the State Ethnographic Collection of Saxony . Other pieces went to the Natural History Museum Hamburg and so Hamburg was preserved at that time. They are now in the Zoological Museum and the Museum of Ethnology . Other parts of the collection came to Leiden. The connection came about through the former custodian Johannes Schmeltz, who from May 1, 1882 worked as a “Conservator” at the Ethnographic Museum in Leiden and later became its director. The museum was later renamed the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde. There were also collectors as buyers. One of them was the painter Gabriel von Max .

In the period between 1882 and 1885, CA Pöhl worked as curator for the Godeffroy Museum. He was mainly responsible for the sale. It is possible that the sale was made through the natural produce store “E. Damel ". For some inexplicable reasons, the designation “Slg. CA Pöhl ". There has never been a collection of this or any other name within the Godeffroy Museum.

Explorers

  • The first research traveler was Eduard Graeffe from Zurich; In 1861 he traveled to Samoa and returned in 1872. Until 1874 he was the editor of the Journal of the Museum Godeffroy. Like Amalie Dietrich, he came into contact with Cesar Godeffroy through Heinrich Adolph Meyer.
  • In 1863 Amalie Dietrich went to Queensland in eastern Australia; she lived in Brisbane near Moreton Bay and returned in 1873.
  • In 1869, Johann S. Kubary from Warsaw , who originally studied medicine, traveled to the Marshall and Carolinen Archipelago . He returned in May 1875, but drove back in the fall.
  • In 1867 the American Andrew Garrett was won over to the museum. The original drawings of fish come from him.
  • Eduard Demel had worked as an assistant to the museum for several years; traveled to Australia from 1871 to 1875 on behalf of the museum. Later he worked in his own natural produce store.
  • In April 1875 Franz Huebner - originally a pharmacist - went to the Tonga Islands and the Neubritannia Archipelago , where he died on December 31, 1877.
  • Theodor Kleinschmidt had lived on the Viti Islands for a long time and began to travel for the museum in the fall of 1875. a. of the New Britannia Archipelago. On April 10, 1881, he and two companions were murdered on Utuan .
  • PH Krause from Upolu provided an anthropological collection from Samoa.
  • Richard Parkinson worked as a commercial clerk, not an explorer, as mentioned in some publications.

Publications

  • Catalog (s) of the duplicates for sale from the natural history expeditions of Mr. Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn in Hamburg with remarks about the way of life of individual objects contained therein.
From 1864 to 1881 eight “ catalog (s) of the duplicates for sale from the natural history expeditions of Mr. Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn in Hamburg with remarks on the way of life of the individual objects contained therein ”. In the Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History (Series A (Biology) No. 668, from November 19, 2004) the author Ronald Fricke mentions a Catalog IX of the Museum Godeffroy from 1884 with 48 pages by CA Pöhl from the publishing house L. Friedrichsen & Co. Hamburg.
The Journal of the Museum Godeffroy should appear regularly. Because contributions were not made on time, several issues were combined into individual volumes and published at irregular intervals. The journals were published by the Hamburg chart dealer Ludwig Friederichsen . The last volume did not appear until 1909 with the support of the “Wilhelm von Godeffroy Family Fidei Comiss Foundation”. A total of six volumes were published:
  • Volume 1 with booklets 1, 2 and 4 with 35 plates and 8 woodcuts (1873–1874)
  • Volume 2 with the booklets 3, 5, 7 and 9 with 83 plates and 10 woodcuts as well as Volume I of the fish of the South Seas
  • Volume 3 with issues 6, 8 and 10 with 43 plates (1873–1875)
  • Volume 4 with the booklets 11, 13 and 15 with 57 plates and 3 woodcuts as well as Volume II of the fish of the South Seas
  • Volume 5 with booklets 12 and 14 with 24 plates and 7 woodcuts (1876–1879)
  • Volume 6 with booklets 16 and 17 with 40 plates (1909–1910).
  • Directory of the photographs of the Museum Godeffroy which concern Australia and the South Seas.
The travelers Jan Kubary and Franz Huebner are known to have taken photos. In the course of time, a directory of the photographs of the Museum Godeffroy which relate to Australia and the South Seas was created with almost 600 pictures. This catalog was published in 1880. Prints of the photographs were offered in different formats and produced by the Altona studio Th. Baden as required.
  • South Lake Types, Godeffroy Museum's anthropological album.
A compilation of 175 photographs and 28 plates was published under the title South Sea Types, Anthropological Album of the Godeffroy Museum . It was to be regarded as a supplement to the 700-page publication on the ethnographic-anthropological department. It was published by Verlag L. Friederichsen, Hamburg 1881. The Museum für Völkerkunde in Hamburg has a large collection of these photographs.
  • List of the ethnographic objects in the Godeffroy Museum.
On the occasion of the 49th meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Doctors in Hamburg in September 1876, a 35-page directory of the ethnographic objects in the Museum Godeffroy was published. It was published by L. Friederichsen, Hamburg, September 1876.
  • Guide to the Godeffroy Museum.
At the beginning of 1882, Johannes Schmeltz wrote a guide to the Godeffroy Museum . The introduction offers a detailed insight into the development and history of the Museum Godeffroy, published by Verlag L. Friederichsen, Hamburg 1882.

Animal and plant names

In recognition of the promotion of research into the flora and fauna of the Pacific Ocean, animals and plants were given the name Godeffroy in the first description . Here is a small selection:

literature

history
  • Jakob Hallermann: The Godeffroy Museum in Hamburg (1861 to 1881) - construction, success and decline. In: Secretary 7 (2), 2007, ISSN  1612-2399 , pp. 47-55.
  • Birgit Scheps: The sold museum. The South Sea companies of the trading house Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn, Hamburg, and the “Museum Godeffroy” collections. Goecke & Evers, Keltern-Weiler 2005, ISBN 3-937783-11-3 . (Treatises of the Natural Science Association in Hamburg; NF, 40)
  • Birgit Scheps: … .in the service of the trade on the wide open sea… The South Sea operations of the trading house JC Godeffroy & Sohn, Hamburg and the creation of the “Museum Godeffroy” collections. PhD 2005 at the Institute for Social Anthropology at the University of Leipzig
  • Helene Kranz: The Godeffroy Museum, 1861–1881 Natural history and ethnography of the South Seas . A publication by the Altona Museum. Mare Buchverlag, 2005, ISBN 3-927637-47-5 (catalog for the exhibition from November 13, 2005 to May 14, 2006, Hamburg, Jenisch Haus).
  • Helene Kranz: The Godeffroy Museum and its explorers . In: Huguenots , Volume 71 No. 4/2007, published by the Deutsche Hugenotten-Gesellschaft eV, Hafenplatz 9a, ​​34385 Bad Karlshafen ( PDF ; 2.7 MB).
  • Michael Geyer (Ed.): Skulls and skeletons as objects and subjects of a world and human history , in: Comparativ , Vol. 10, No 5-6 (2000), Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2001, ISBN 3-935693-06-0 , digitized
  • Susanne Fülleborn: The ethnographic ventures of the Hamburg trading house Godeffroy. Master thesis. Univ. Hamburg, 1985.
  • Herbert Weidner : Johann Cesar VI Godeffroy . In: History of Entomology in Hamburg , (in: Treatises and negotiations of the Natural Science Association in Hamburg, Vol. IX), Commission publisher Cram, de Gruyter & Co., Hamburg, 1967, pp. 138–142, DNB 364785268 .
  • Herbert Weidner: From the history of the collection up to the bombing in 1943 . In: The Entomological Collections of the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum of the University of Hamburg , Volume 70, Hamburg, April 1974, pp. 183ff.
  • Antje Kelm: Skull masks from New Britain . In: Alfried Wieczorek (Ed.), Wilfried Rosendahl: Skull cult, head and skull in the human cultural history , Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2455-8 , p. 177.
Collections
  • Katharina Haslwanter: The South Seas Collection of Prof. Carl Cramer and Dr. Eduard Graeffe at the Ethnographic Museum of the University of Zurich. Master's thesis, University of Vienna. Faculty of Social Sciences, 2009. (Contents are Carl Cramer's South Seas collection. In 1902, the heirs donated a collection of Ethnographica, which Eduard Graeffe had collected for Johan Cesar Godeffroy & Son during his travels.)
  • Jakob Hallermann: On the history of the herpetological collection of the Zoological Museum Hamburg , with special consideration of Dr. JG Fischer (1819-1889). Secretary 7 (1), 2007, ISSN  1612-2399 pp. 20-32.
  • Birgit Scheps: The Australian collection from the Godeffroy Museum in the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig. In: Yearbook of the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig. Vol. 40, 1994, ISSN  0075-8663 , pp. 194-209.
photography
  • Jan Lederbogen: Godeffroy's world of images: Science and photography in the 19th century using the example of the photographic collection of the Godeffroy Museum . In: View into Paradise , Historical Photographs from Polynesia. New episode vol. 46/2014 of the messages from the Museum für Völkerkunde , p. 155ff. ISBN 978-3-944193-01-4 (catalog of an exhibition in the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg from December 15, 2013 to August 31, 2014).
  • Thomas Theye: … a look for everything remarkable… some aspects of the history of science in Amalie Dietrich's Queensland photographs in the anthropological collection of the Godeffroy Museum. In: Yearbook of the Museum of Ethnology in Leipzig. Volume 42, 2004, ISSN  0075-8663 , pp. 161-280.
  • Jan Lederbogen: Early Photography on Samoa between Scientific Claims and Colonial Thinking; the photographs of the Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg. In: Jutta Beate Engelhard, Peter Mesenhöller (ed.): Pictures from paradise. Colonial photography from Samoa 1875–1925. Jonas Verlag, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-89445-184-X .
  • Jan Lederbogen: Ethnographic Photography: the Example Museum Godeffroy. Master thesis. Univ. Hamburg, 1992.
  • Rüdiger Joppien: Barnabas, Garrett, Godeffroy and the others . A portrait from the early days of photography. In: Festschrift Heinz Spielmann . Hamburg 1990.
In English
  • Glenn Penny: Objects of culture: ethnology and ethnographic museums in Imperial Germany. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill / London 2002.
  • Glenn Penny: Science and Marketplaces: The Creation and Contentious Sale of the Museum Godeffroy , Journal of the Pacific Arts Association, Volumes 21-22, (2000)
  • Ray Sumner: Photographs of Aborigines of North-East Australia: A Collection of Early Queensland Aboriginal Photographs, Made by Amalie Dietrich for the Museum Godeffroy. In: Aboriginal History. Vol. 10, 1986, pp. 157-170. (based at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia)

Web links

Wikisource: Museum Godeffroy  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Museum Godeffroy  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. Hamburg address book for 1847, authorities and other bodies, official information, section: Alphabetical directory of public institutions, charitable foundations and associations, scientific institutes, buildings worth seeing and other peculiarities, initially for strangers, p. 469.
  2. Most of the conchylia and ornithological pieces that were presented by the merchant Gerhard Hinrich von Essen (1770–1833) were shown. The collection was open to the public two days a week. The collection was housed in two rooms below the library.
  3. At the same time as Graeffe, other scientists were active in the South Seas. One was Karl Semper . He traveled to Manila in 1858, to the south of the Philippines in 1859, to the island of Luzon in 1860, and in 1862 he sailed to the Palau Group. He undertook zoological, anthropological and ethnological studies; returned to Manila in 1863 (?), traveled to Mindanao and set out for Hamburg / Altona in May 1865. Semper probably had purely scientific intentions. (Source: August Schuberg: Carl Semper . In: Reisen im Archipel der Philippinen . Volume 2 , no. 1 . CW Kreidel, 1870, p. 490-502 (VII-XVIII)) . Another was the Swiss Othmar Rietmann (1831–1869), a natural research teacher. In 1857 he traveled from Bremen to Sydney, where he arrived in February 1858. There he took a job as a teacher and collected in his spare time. In 1860 he changed jobs to make new and different collections. In 1861 he became an assistant at the Sydney Botanical Gardens ; in August he resigned in order to “undertake an expedition to the South Sea islands and examine them for the purpose of colonization” (p. 411), duration 4½ months. He then became a teacher again and went on excursions. In May 1863 he left Australia again for St. Gallen, where he “... intended to help his finances, which were by no means brilliant, to some extent by selling the duplicates” (p. 416). (Source for Rietmann: Wartmann: Biographical Notes on Professors Carl Deicke and Othmar Rietmann , in: Report on the activities of the St. Gallic Natural Science Society during the year 1869–70, Zollikofer, St. Gallen 1869, pp. 402–421)
  4. JDE Schmeltz: Jürgen Heinrich Witt † Nekrolog , Volume X., Association for Natural Science Entertainment , Volume X, L. Friedrichsen & Co, Hamburg, 1899, p. 121, ( digitized version ).
  5. ^ Antje Kelm: Skull masks from New Britain , 2011, p. 177.
  6. ^ R. Timm: Johannes Dietrich Eduard Schmeltz . In: Negotiations of the Association for Natural Science Entertainment in Hamburg , Vol. XIII, Friederichsen & Co, Hamburg 1907, p. 3, ( online ).
  7. Ordinary members (list). 1875, p. 11, CA Pöhl with the note “derz. Assistant at the Museum Godeffroy ”and“ Capt. ”( Online ). In later entries in Hamburg address books there is also the name "Schiffskapitän" after his name. There are e.g. Currently no evidence of activity as a captain for JC Godeffroy & Sohn.
  8. Gottlieb August Herrich-Schaeffer : New butterflies from the Godeffroy Museum . In: Entomologische Zeitung , 30. Jg., Stettin 1869, pp. 65ff., (At the beginning the author draws attention to errors in collecting, packaging and transport.)
  9. ^ Advertisement for the sale of plaster casts of face masks (source: correspondence sheet of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory , Jg. 1872, p. 80, ( online )).
  10. The entomologist Walter Horn provides an insight into the trade in "entomological goods" in the article: About the past times of the circles of lovers in Central Europe (PDF). In: Entomologische Beihefte , Volume 4, Berlin-Dahlem, 1937. S. 389ff.
  11. CA Dohrn : Macrotoma Heros Heer . In: Entomologische Zeitung , 29th year, Grassmann, Stettin 1868, pp. 203-206, ( online ).
  12. ^ Wilhelm Melhop : Historical topography of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 1880 to 1895 . W. Mauke Sons , Hamburg 1895, p. 44 ( online ).
  13. Herbert Weidner: From the history of the collection up to the bombing in 1943 , p. 183ff. ( PDF ) and M. Dzwillo: History of the origin of the Zoological Museum Hamburg ; see: “Society of Friends and Patrons of the Zoological Museum Hamburg eV” ( PDF ), (accessed July 3, 2017).
  14. Report on acquisitions from the Museum Godeffroy collection, in: CW Lüders: Museum für Völkerkunde , in: Yearbook of the Hamburg Scientific Institutions , Vol. 4, Gräfe, Hamburg 1887, pp. LXII – LXVI,
  15. ^ Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde ( website ).
  16. The ethnographic and archaeological collection is now in the possession of the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim.
  17. Pöhl was for a longer period of time (1870–1886) with the address “Bernhardstr. 1 ”in the Hamburg address book. Between 1879 and 1890, “E. Demel, Naturalienhdlg. “. This is probably the son of Eduard Demel (abbreviation CFE). Pöhl showed for the first time in 1890 in the trade directory under "natural products".
  18. Eduard Graeffe has reported extensively on his travels, including in Meine Biographie , 1916, pp. 1–39, ( online ).
  19. ^ Eduard Graeffe: Journeys in the interior of the island Viti-Levu , 1868, No. 70, ( online ).
  20. "Mr. Schmeltz announces the return of the two naturalists Dr. Gräffe and G. [ustav] Wallis .... ”In: 7th Assembly, November 3, 1871 . In: Negotiations of the Association for Natural Science Entertainment in Hamburg , 1871–1874, Friederichsen, Hamburg 1875, p. 23. Whether Gustav Wallis ever worked on behalf of JC Godeffroy & Son is questionable. Presumably, both naturalists only went ashore in Hamburg at the same time.
  21. The information in the guide to the Godeffroy Museum , which Johannes Schmeltz wrote, saying that she worked in Australia from 1868 to 1878, is incorrect.
  22. ^ [JDE] S [chmeltz]: Franz Huebner , Nekrolog, In: Journal des Museum Godeffroy , Volume 5, Issue 14, 1879, p. 284, digitized
  23. It is not clear whether the reference is the Museum Godeffroy, the Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Son or the person Johan Cesar Godeffroy is.
  24. ^ Georg Semper: Description of Papilio Godeffroyi . In: Transactions of the Royal Entomological Society of London . tape 2 , 1864, p. 469-470 (English, online ).


Coordinates: 53 ° 32 '47.7 "  N , 10 ° 0' 5.4"  E