The Museum Godeffroy was a
museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...
in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
, timezone1 = Central (CET)
, utc_offset1 = +1
, timezone1_DST = Central (CEST)
, utc_offset1_DST = +2
, postal ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, which existed from 1861 to 1885.
![SeitzFaunaIndoAustralicaPlate9](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/SeitzFaunaIndoAustralicaPlate9.jpg)
The collection was founded by
Johann Cesar VI. Godeffroy, who became a wealthy
shipping
Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been ...
magnate a few years after the expansion of the trade towards
Australia and the
South Seas
Today the term South Seas, or South Sea, is used in several contexts. Most commonly it refers to the portion of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator. In 1513, when Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa coined the term ''Mar del Sur'', ...
. His expert collectors and captains brought back to Hamburg
zoological
Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and dis ...
,
botanical
Botany, also called , plant biology or phytology, is the science of plant life and a branch of biology. A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist is a scientist who specialises in this field. The term "botany" comes from the Ancient Greek wo ...
and
ethnographic
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...
material. Captains of vessels, traders and missionaries received exact instructions and appropriate equipment so that they could collect soft bodied animals into alcohol, properly set butterflies or beetles, and prepare bird and mammal skins and skulls.
Herbarium instructions and mineral collecting kits were also issued. Duplicate or unwanted parts were sold.
Throughout the museum's history it also sold human skulls from the Pacific regions (including
Australia) where the company had a monopoly. This was very profitable.
Anthropometry
Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various at ...
and
"Missing Link" theories required especially
Aborigine skulls and these were sold to scientific institutions and museums worldwide. The more important material was sold to
Otto Finsch
Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch (8 August 1839, Warmbrunn – 31 January 1917, Braunschweig) was a German ethnographer, naturalist and colonial explorer. He is known for a two-volume monograph on the parrots of the world which earned him a doctorate ...
and
Rudolf Virchow
Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow (; or ; 13 October 18215 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder ...
, then pre-eminent German physical anthropologists.
The museum opened in 1861 in parts of the Kontorhäuser (Counting House Building) of the company "J. C. Godeffroy & son". The exhibition on two floors covered the natural history, ethnography and anthropology of the
South Seas
Today the term South Seas, or South Sea, is used in several contexts. Most commonly it refers to the portion of the Pacific Ocean south of the equator. In 1513, when Spanish conquistador Vasco Núñez de Balboa coined the term ''Mar del Sur'', ...
.
Mammals
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...
,
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
s,
reptiles,
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...
,
amphibians,
butterflies,
beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
s and other
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...
s,
marine life (especially
shells), masks, totems, costume, weapons, personal ornament and anthropological subjects, aboriginal skulls, photographs of native peoples and so on were displayed in small cases. Larger items, such as boats and reconstructed houses, stood free. Admission was weekdays from 11 to 14 o'clock for one
Mark
Mark may refer to:
Currency
* Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina
* East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic
* Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927
* F ...
, and on the weekends from 10 to 14 o'clock for 50
Pfennig
The 'pfennig' (; . 'pfennigs' or ; symbol pf or ₰) or penny is a former German coin or note, which was the official currency from the 9th century until the introduction of the euro in 2002. While a valuable coin during the Middle Ages, ...
.
Experts in various fields ("Auftragssammler") were employed on expeditions and for scientific examination and other work on the collection. They included
Eduard Heinrich Graeffe
Eduard Heinrich Graeffe or Gräffe (27 December 1833, Zurich – 23 April 1916 Ljubljana) was a Swiss zoologist and naturalist. As an entomologist, he specialised in Hymenoptera, Diptera and Hemiptera.
From around 1860, Graeffe was in t ...
,
Amalie Dietrich
Koncordie Amalie Dietrich (née Nelle) (26 May 1821 – 9 March 1891) was a German naturalist who was best known for her work in Australia from 1863 to 1872, collecting specimens for the Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg.
Australia
Dietrich was one ...
,
Johann Stanislaus Kubary,
Richard Parkinson,
Andrew Garrett,
Eduard Dämel,
Franz Hübner,
Alfred Tetens and
Theodor Kleinschmidt, among others.
The overall curator was
Johann Schmeltz (1839–1909). In addition, he provided 1865 and 1881 sales catalogs and edited the ''Journal des Museum Godeffroy''. A number of
binomial names
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
were published for the first time in these publications giving them significance in
classification. The Semper brothers, also from Hamburg,
Otto
Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity".
The name is recorded f ...
(1830–1907),
Karl Karl may refer to:
People
* Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name
* Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne
* Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer
* Karl of Austria, last Austria ...
(1832–1893) and
Georg (1837–1909) played an important part in the assembly and conservation of the museum's holdings. Georg named the rare Samoa butterfly ''
Papilio godeffroyi'' for Johann Godeffroy.
After the discontinuation of all payments in Dec. 1879 the museum existed further as it did not belong to the company J.C. Godeffroy & Son anymore. Dr. Wilhelm Godeffroy became the owner for a grant to the company. Since 1881 the museum had been threatened in its existence, as all buildings should be pulled down in the area. The abridgement began 1885. The same year in which Cesar Godeffroy died, Dr. Wilhelm Godeffroy finished the negotiations without reaching his wish, to keep the collection in its own rooms in Hamburg.
A large number of exhibits and specimens survive today in the
Museum für Völkerkunde zu Leipzig (now merged with the
Staatlichen Ethnographischen Sammlung Sachsens and containing 5000 objects comprehensive for
Micronesia
Micronesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, consisting of about 2,000 small islands in the western Pacific Ocean. It has a close shared cultural history with three other island regions: the Philippines to the west, Polynesia to the east, and ...
and
Fiji and including objects from
Melanesia
Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea.
The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, Va ...
and
Polynesia
Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...
); the
Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg; the
Ethnological Museum of Berlin
The Ethnological Museum of Berlin (german: Ethnologisches Museum Berlin) is one of the Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is presently located in ...
; the
Pitt Rivers Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed ...
in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
; and the
D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum in
Dundee. There is also zoological material in the Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum,
Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum
the Museum für Naturkunde
The Natural History Museum (german: Museum für Naturkunde) is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major muse ...
, Berlin, the Civico Museo di Storia Naturale di Trieste
Civico Museo di Storia Naturale di Trieste is a natural history museum in Trieste, northern Italy. It contains several collections, including more than two millions botanical, zoological, mineralogical, geological, and paleontological specimens.
...
and the Naturhistorisches Museum
The Natural History Museum Vienna (german: Naturhistorisches Museum Wien) is a large natural history museum located in Vienna, Austria. It is one of the most important natural history museums worldwide.
The NHM Vienna is one of the largest museum ...
in Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
.The Godeffroy Collection of Australian and South Pacific insects is in the Victoria Museum in Melbourne, Australia.The zoological material supports Faunistic of Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of and a population of around 44.5 million ...
and Australasia
Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologi ...
Johann Schmeltz, the former curator was already a co-worker of the Ethnographic Museum in Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wi ...
(now the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde), which had purchased parts of the ethnographic collection.
Journal Museum Godeffroy
File:Journaldesmuseumgodeffroy.jpg, Journal Museum Godeffroy Advertisement
File:Journaldesmuseumgodeffroygunther.jpg, Title page
File:JournalMuseumGodoeffroyHeftXVFischederSudseeHeft7Taf136.jpg, Fische der Sudsee
File:Description de quelques Crustaces nouveaux.jpg, Description de quelques Crustaces nouveaux
File:Beitrag zur fauna Centralpolynesiens. Ornithologie der Viti-, Samoa- und Tonga-inselnPl7.jpg, Beitrag zur fauna Centralpolynesiens Ornithologie der Viti-, Samoa- und Tonga-inseln
File:Neue Nacktschnecken der SüdseeJournal des Museum Godeffroy Heft 2 Taf9.jpg, Neue Nacktschnecken der Südsee
File:Australische Kunstgegenstände aus Queensland.jpg, Australische Kunstgegenstände aus Queensland
File:TattooCarolinenArchipelagoKubary1875.jpg, Männliche Tattoo e Karolinen Archipel
File:Schadel 9800 Queensland.jpg, Schädel von Skelett No. 9800 aus Bowen, Queensland
Literature
* Henry A. Ward: '' Museum Godeffroy.'' In: Popular Science Monthly
''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
, Volume 8, 1. April 1876, (englisch).
* Rüdiger Bieler, Richard E. Petit: ''Molluscan taxa in the publications of the Museum Godeffroy of Hamburg, with a discussion of the Godeffroy Sales Catalogs (1864–1884), the Journal des Museum Godeffroy (1873–1910), and a history of the museum'', Zootaxa, Magnolia Press, 2012, ISSN 1175-5334,
PDF
.
*Engelhard, Jutta Beate and Mesenhöller, Peter (Hrsg.) 1996 ''Bilder aus dem Paradies. Koloniale Fotografie aus Samoa 1875 - 192''5. 176 Seiten, Jonas Verlag, Marburg .
*Fülleborn, Susanne ''Die ethnographischen Unternehmungen des Hamburger Handelshauses Godeffro''y, 202 S., Magisterarbeit, Univ. Hamburg, 1985.
*Glenn Penny, H. ''Objects of culture : ethnology and ethnographic museums in Imperial Germany'', Chapel Hill/London: University of North Carolina Press 2002.
* Kranz, Helene 2005 Das Museum Godeffroy, 1861-1881 ''Naturkunde und Ethnographie der Südsee''. Eine Publikation des Altonaer Museums. marebuchverlag .
*Lederbogen, Jan 1992 ''Ethnographische Photographie: das Beispiel Museum Godeffroy'', 278 S., Magisterarbeit, Univ. Hamburg, 1992
*Scheps, Birgit 2005 ''Das verkaufte Museum. Die Südsee-Unternehmungen des Handelshauses Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Sohn, Hamburg, und die Sammlungen Museum Godeffroy''. Goecke & Evers, Keltern-Weiler (Abhandlungen des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins in Hamburg; N.F., 40) .
*Schmeltz, J. D. E. und Krause, R. 1881 ''Die Ethnographisch-Anthropologische Abtheilung des Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg : ein Beitrag zur Kunde der Südsee-Völker'', 687 Seiten u. 46 Taf., Friederichsen, Hamburg.
References
External links
BHL
''Journal des Museum Godeffroy'' Museum Godeffroy Hamburg: L. Friederichsen & Co., 1873–1910.
Special exhibition of the Altonaer museum of 15.11.2005 to 14.05.2006
An exhibition criticism from the year 2005
Godeffroy Museum Catalogues
Anthropological photography
Skulls as Science
German workers in the ethnographic field
Hugenotten
{{Authority control
Museums established in 1861
Museums disestablished in 1885
1861 establishments in Germany
1885 disestablishments in Germany
Defunct museums in Germany
Ethnographic museums in Germany
Museums in Hamburg
Natural history museums in Germany
19th century in Hamburg
Godeffroy family
Demolished buildings and structures in Germany