The "Old Naturaliensammlung"

At that time, this collection consisted mainly of minerals, fossils, partly of mussels, snails, crustaceans and a few botanical objects. Unfortunately, Saint Laurent's description gives no concrete evidence of certain minerals in this collection and even the first catalogue of the Viennese Mineral Collection, the "Catalogus Stützianus", written by Andreas Stütz in the years 1797-1806, only shows very rare indications of these, so that nowadays we only know for certain that a few of the beautiful Colombian emeralds were already part of the former private collection of Johann von Baillou, among others the samples which Franz Stephan of Lorraine, surrounded by the directors of his collections, is shown holding in the painting by Jakob Kohl und Franz Meßmer on the interior staircase leading up the Museum of Natural History.

Unfortunately, most of the several thousand samples, which the Emperor must have obtained as part of the Baillou Collection, can no longer be identified because of gaps in the records and to the minerals and fossils, as well as precious and decorative stones acquired by the Imperial Household during the years 1748 and 1797. The same applies to the description of the collection itself, of the comprehensive historical work carried out between the years 1748 and 1802. There is a contradiction in the reports on the "Alte Naturaliensammlung" (Old Natural History Collection), the "Hof-Naturalien-Cabinet" (Court Natural History Cabinet) and the "Kaiserliche Naturalienkammer" (Imperial Natural History Chamber) etc. (i. e. FITZINGER, 1856; BLÖCHINGER vom BANNHOLZ, 1868; HAMANN, 1976).

However, the Emperor was not content to let the purchase of the "Baillou" Collection end his activities. He is reputed to have made a considerable sum of money available, being prepared to have an open mind to problems in natural science. A famous example, possibly apogryphical, is the experiment which Franz Stephan carried out in the co-operation with the Jesuit priest Joseph Franz (1704-1776), known for his work in physics, to verify the combustibility of diamonds. He also initiated a series of expeditions that were to supply new material for his collections. For example, Nikolaus von Jacquin and the Imperial gardener Richard van der Schott travelled first to France, from where they shipped minerals among others (FITZINGER, 1856), then to embark on the voyage to Central America. About 50 boxes were brought by Jacquin with species from nature and artefacts to Vienna. Presumably the platinum samples from Choco in Columbia, which are already included in the "Catalogus Stützianus", were part of this shipment. Johann von Baillou dies in 1758 and his son Ludwig Balthasar von Baillou assumes the management of the collection in accordance with the earlier agreement.

Maria Theresia, co-regent in the Habsburg dominions, shared her husband's interest in the sciences. She presented Franz Stephan with the wonderful bouquet of precious stones, which is justifiably considered as the founding object of the precious stone collection of the Viennese Museum. 761 variegated stones and 2,102 diamonds were used in the assembly of this bouquet of jewels - representing a bouquet of flowers, along with diverse artistically reproduced insects, leaves of silk, contained in a vase of rock crystal. Maria Theresia is said to have put this bouquet in the Emperor's Mineral Cabinet one spring morning (FITZINGER, 1856). Traditionally, it is alleged that this is Viennese work; it is ascribed to a Viennese jeweller, Michael von Grosser. However, there is some evidence that the bouquet originates from Georg Gottfried Lautensack, a jeweller from Frankfurt and that Goethe in his youth was already intrigued by the manufacture of this objet d'art (NIEDERMAYR, 1989). Taking historical developments into account, which are dealt with in Goethe's fourth book: "Aus meinem Leben" (From my life), the bouquet must have been almost completed by the year 1763. The Emperor's son, later to be Emperor Joseph II, was crowned King of the Germans in Frankfurt in the year 1765 and died in the summer of the same year.

Maria Theresia continued in the tradition of the Viennese "Naturaliensammlung" (Natural History Collection), but in her personal practical way of thinking, with the consent of her son, then Emperor Joseph II, she assigned all of the Imperial Collections to the supervision of the Oberstkämmerer.

 

In this way the general public was to get to know minerals, which after all are the raw materials of industrial production. It was with the same intention that Maria Theresia founded the first Imperial Mining Academy of the Monarchy in Schemnitz.
 

The management of the Natural History Collection remained at first in the hands of Ludwig Balthasar Ritter von Baillou (1758-1802); only in 1797 a second director, Andreas Stütz, was appointed. For care and control of the steadily growing collection, Baillou appointed Johann Baptist Megerle on an honorary basis, alongside the court painter Franz Joseph Wiedon, who was to illustrate the natural historical objects. From then (1766) on, the collections were made accessible to the public on a twice weekly basis. However, they were still displayed in accordance with the old system of Chevalier de Baillou. It was specially with minerals, that the desire for possession of mineralogically unusual, even spectacular, took precedence over a systematically ordered mineral domain.

The low scientific standards of her collections appears to have been a thorn in the flesh of Maria Theresia and she appointed Ignaz von Born in 1776, who had already made a name for himself at the Prague mint and Bergrath (mine inspector's) office, to the scientific supervision of the Natural History Collection in Vienna. Although Born revised the Conch Collection in an exemplary manner and had a richly illustrated index published in 1778, the mineralogical specimens were merely displayed newly in accordance with the system of Wallerius and Cronstedt in 1778-1780. For the production of an illustrated catalogue, as had already been done for the Conch Collection, time was evidently too short and the resources inadequate. Apart from Megerle, the curator, Karl Haidinger, a 1778 newly appointed mineralogist, also assisted and was appointed deputy director of the Natural Resources Cabinet as of March 1780. (FITZINGER, 1856).

Born, being a noted earth scientist, as well as a freemason of high standing with numerous contacts, was able to engender a steady flow of mineralogical samples to the Viennese collection. Despite this, precise data are not available from the inventory. It is known that a collection of Sicilian marble, jasper and agate-jasper, as well as lava ejecta from Vesuvius were gifts to Vienna from the Duchess of Calabritto, Petronilla von Ligneville. It is also known that the Bergräthe (mine inspectors) Leithner in Idria, Ruprecht in Schemnitz, Müller in Tyrol and later Siebenbürgen, Ployer in Carinthia and others sent minerals and rocks to Vienna from the mines to which they had access. The transfer of meteorites (Hraschina, Tabor and Miskolcz), previously kept in the Imperial and Royal Treasury, was also arranged by Born.

The mineralogical mining collection of the Imperial Court Secretary Joseph v. Dam was bought by Maria Theresia for a sum of 10,000 guilders, shortly before her death.

Continuing the collecting tradition, Joseph II (1741-1790, Emperor 1765-1790) had the collection adopt more scientific criteria. It was along these lines that a selection of minerals from the collection of his uncle's estate, i.e. that of the General Governor of the Netherlands, Herzog Karl von Lothringen, was made and brought to Vienna. He himself bought, on the occasion of a journey to the Netherlands, a collection of zeolites and chalcedonies from Professor de la Patrie from Hamburg (FITZINGER, 1865).

The earliest survey of new arrangement of the Natural History Collection is published by HAIDINGER (1782). The dissolution of a number of monasteries led partly to the incorporation of their collections in the Natural History Collection.

Literature