Ignaz von Olfers (original) (raw)

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German naturalist, historian and diplomat

Ignaz von Olfers
Born 30 August 1793 Edit this on WikidataMünster Edit this on Wikidata
Died 23 April 1871 Edit this on Wikidata (aged 77)Berlin Edit this on Wikidata

Ignaz Franz Werner Maria von Olfers (30 August 1793 – 23 April 1871) was a German naturalist, historian and diplomat.[1][2]

He was born in Münster, into an banking Olfers family, that in 1803 also became an aristocratic one. In 1816 he travelled to Brazil as a diplomat.[1]

In 1839 he was made director of the royal art collections[1] and had significant influence on Frederick William IV of Prussia for a re-development of the Museumsinsel, Berlin. Together with architect Friedrich August Stueler, he developed the concept of the Neues Museum, Berlin and had great influence on organisation and presentation of exhibits and interior. His daughter was the writer and illustrator Marie von Olfers.[3]

Olfers described a number of new mammal species in Wilhelm Ludwig von Eschwege's Journal von Brasilien (1818).[4][5]

In 1819, Olfersia which is a genus of ferns (in the family Dryopteridaceae) from South America, was published,[6] then a species of South American snake, Philodryas olfersii (in 1823),[7] and frog, Physalaemus olfersii (in 1856), were all named in his honour.[2]

  1. ^ a b c Lionel von Donop (1887), "Olfers, Ignaz von", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 24, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 290–291
  2. ^ a b Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael & Grayson, Michael (2013). The Eponym Dictionary of Amphibians. Pelagic Publishing. p. 158. ISBN 978-1-907807-42-8.
  3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende (2006). Lexikon Berliner Grabstätten. Berlin: Haude & Spener. p. 55.
  4. ^ Burwick, Roswitha (1994). "From Aesthetic Teas to the World of Noble Reformers: The Berlin Salonière (1780 to 1848)". Pacific Coast Philology. 29 (2): 129–142. doi:10.2307/1316470. JSTOR 1316470.
  5. ^ van Wezel, Elsa (1 January 2001). "Die Konzeptionen des Alten und Neuen Museums zu Berlin und das sich wandelnde historische Bewusstsein". Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen (in German). 43: 3–244. doi:10.2307/4129998. JSTOR 4129998.
  6. ^ Hassler, Michael & Schmitt, Bernd (January 2020). "Olfersia". Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World. 8.20. Archived from the original on 2017-09-02. Retrieved 2020-01-17.
  7. ^ Beolens B, Watkins M, Grayson M (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Olfers", p. 194).