Travelling objects: the story of two natural history collections in the nineteenth century.

Publication: Portuguese Studies

Publication Date: 01-JAN-03

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COPYRIGHT 2003 Modern Humanities Research Association

This paper will explore the journey of two distinct natural history collections assembled by the naturalists Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844) and Friedrich Welwitsch (1806-72), one from Brazil to Lisbon and Paris, the other from Angola to Lisbon, and then finally to London. Through an examination of these cases I will try to show how, in the nineteenth century, natural history specimens were associated with specific forms of collecting, travelling and exhibiting. I will recover and analyse the travel itineraries that do not appear on the museum labels of these objects, and by so doing reveal the exhibition culture that constitutes one of the main values of nineteenth-century Western civilization. Through the example of Portugal, I will also show how this culture is more visible in some countries than others. In fact, the making of natural history collections at this period is inseparable from the wider context of national and colonial identities, and from the conflict between a cosmopolitan scientific community and the growing number of nationalist projects that tried to exploit this knowledge for their own ends.

Of the two cases discussed here, the first took place in the context of the Napoleonic invasions, an event whose disruptive impact not only shaped both Europe and the onset of the nineteenth century but also determined the destination of many objects and collections. The famous French naturalist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire came to Portugal in 1808 when the country was under Napoleonic rule. He was in charge of the mission entrusted with selecting from the Portuguese natural history collections the objects of greatest scientific interest. These were then sent to Paris, where they joined many others dispatched from various places in Europe and North Africa by Napoleon's armies and by illustrious members of the French scientific community. The new homes for these collections were the museums that were intended to consecrate French imperialist power. However, after the defeat of Napoleon many of the countries that had been looted of their treasures asked for their return. Portugal was no exception. But, as will be seen, the process of restitution was far from simple or linear. On the contrary, it was long and inconsistent, with political, scientific, diplomatic, and personal issues weighing heavily.

The second case to be discussed is very different, but one that raises many issues in common with the first. It took place later in the century, between the 1850s and '70s; its main protagonist was the Austrian naturalist Friedrich Welwitsch, and the main cities involved were no longer Lisbon and Paris, but Lisbon and London. After a long stay in Portugal (1839-53), where among many other activities he worked in the Jardim Botanico da Ajuda, in 1853 Welwitsch was sent by Queen Maria II of Portugal on a mission to Angola. The official aim was comprehensively to study its natural resources with the aim of improving the economic and commercial exploitation of the Portuguese colony. Upon his return eight years later, and with all the collections in crates, Welwitsch did not stay in Lisbon for very long. Only London, he believed, possessed the museums, scientists and collections necessary for the proper study of his African discoveries. The potential 'museum' was therefore only unpacked in London and never completely returned to Portugal. What happened next was a fascinating legal case, to be discussed later, which pitted Portugal, represented by its king D. Luis, against the British Museum, where the knowledge of the Portuguese colony, so coveted by Britain, was safely stored.

GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE

In 1808, General Junot, under orders from Napoleon, was commander of the French invading forces in Portugal. With him was Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the distinguished zoologist and director of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. (1) The reason for Sainte-Hilaire's presence in Lisbon was not disguised. He was on an official scientific mission, similar to the one that had taken him to Egypt in 1798. He was there to select from the collections of that city and take back to Paris the natural history objects that he thought worthy of interest. It was not by chance that the great majority of the objects found worth taking from the cupboards of the royal Gabinete da Ajuda were specimens originally brought from the Portuguese colonies. (2) Of these colonies Brazil was the best represented, mainly because of the scientific voyage of Alexandre Rodrigues Ferreira undertaken from 1783 to 1792. Brazil also constituted one of the biggest gaps in the Paris museum collection.

Even before the French invasion of Portugal the famous Cuvier, on behalf of the naturalists of the Paris museum, had written to the French Minister of the Interior proposing the appointment of his friend Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire to 'collect the objects and information useful to science and to our institution' from the Portuguese collections. He was well aware of what they would find there:

Nous pensons que cette mesure serait aussi utile en Portugal qu'C nous. En faisant un choix de ce qui nous interesse, le commissaire assurera pour le pays la conservation du reste et l'experience a prouve que, faute de semblables precautions, des collections precieuses ont ete absolument perdues pour tout le monde. Il n'est pas douteux que notre etablissement ne puisse beaucoup profiter de ce voyage. Nous savons qu'il y a en Portugal plusieurs cabinets publics, riches en productions des trois regions, de l'Inde et du Bresil, dont nous sommes prives, faute de relations avec ces contrees eloignees. Le Portugal lui-meme produit plusieurs objects qu'il sera interessant de procurer C la France, et, comme tout cela doit s'y trouver en grand nombre, on peut, avec de la moderation, nous enrichir beaucoup sans appauvrir sensiblement le pays. (3)

The aim of the mission was achieved. Some years later, in the catalogue of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, the son of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire wrote that in the collection his father obtained from Portugal there were a great number of beautiful specimens of fauna from Brazil, India, Guinea and other Portuguese colonies. (4) Through the looting of the collections in Lisbon, France was reaching other geographical areas to which it did not itself have direct access. The fact that Portugal was being deprived of some of the objects that symbolized its identity as colonizer, and in many ways its past, could serve as a metaphor for the relation between colonizer and colonized. While on the contrary, countries like France and England were increasingly developing their status as nineteenth-century colonial powers.

This initiative by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was far from unique during the Napoleonic invasions of Europe and North Africa. And in fact, the plunder of Portugal cannot be compared with that of Italy or Egypt, whose objects were recognizable symbols of former powerful civilizations and therefore more suitable to incorporate in French imperialistic narratives. The widely quoted example of Napoleon parading the treasures looted during his invasions through the streets of Paris also attests to their significance. There was nothing to hide. On the contrary, there was much to be displayed. The sudden invasion of Paris museums by objects originating from many worlds was a mirror of other forms of developing power.

In the many French versions of the 1808 event, and even in some Portuguese ones, what is permanently at stake is the legitimization of the venture. (5) First of all, there is the much repeated idea that the advance of science was above the contingencies of geographical borders, and that objects belonged where they were cared for, studied and properly displayed. But other ideas were also voiced: that Saint-Hilaire came to Portugal to help in the organization of public education; that far from looting this was in fact an exchange, because the French scholar brought minerals that Portugal lacked; and that the mission was as useful to Portugal as it was to France, because Saint-Hilaire produced a catalogue of the collections, which was something that had not existed before. (6) So, apart from taking the objects to 'civilization', Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire is portrayed as the agent of civilization, transforming useless objects of curiosity into scientific specimens.

When Saint-Hilaire was ready to depart for France with the crates of specimens, the British army in Portugal tried to stop him. In Egypt the British had managed to recover some of the objects the French were gathering and divert them to London. But in Lisbon their efforts were unsuccessful, and after a few mishaps the French naturalist succeeded in leaving Portugal with almost everything he had packed. (7)

After the Peace of Paris, in 1815, the objects looted during the French invasions were one of the main issues which remained to be dealt with. A circular signed by the Duc de Richelieu invited each invaded country to present its demands for the return of its own objects, but...

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