Specimens and the Currency of Honour: the Museum Trade of Ferdinand von Mueller

Abstract

As Royal Cabinets were converted to modern museums of natural history during the nineteenth century, European States used appointments to Orders of chivalry to encourage the supply of specimens. The Melbourne botanist Ferdinand von Mueller developed as a middleman a private trade in zoological specimens to accumulate an exceptional number of such memberships. He supplied museums in many countries but, in exchange for ennoblement by the King of Württemberg, concentrated his supply on the museum in Stuttgart. Mueller managed his botanical collecting network by recognizing his suppliers in the scientific literature and also supplied international herbaria, to his own scientific benefit by receiving specimens in exchange.