On 14 September 2019, the world will celebrate the 250th anniversary of Alexander von Humboldt’s birth. To mark the occasion, we asked ourselves: where and how did this man of many talents leave his mark on the SPK’s institutions?
What connection does the adventurer, explorer and world traveller Alexander von Humboldt have with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation? The search for clues begins at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation’s Secret State Archives, where several hundred of Humboldt’s letters are held. They contain numerous stories about how Humboldt enriched the collections of the Prussian kings.
Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt: Alexander von Humboldt has close ties with the SPK
© bpk / Nationalgalerie, SMB / Karin März
As a Prussian chamberlain, Humboldt was a true power broker in Berlin’s cultural life. Thanks to his letters, Humboldt’s activities can still be traced today within the institutions of the SPK. In many cases, he acted as an intermediary, made purchases and wrote expert reports. His influence extends from an Armenian manuscript in the Berlin State Library, through works by Sandro Botticelli, David Ghirlandaio, Andrea del Sarto and Piero di Cosimo in the Picture Gallery, to the cast iron replica of the Warwick Vase in the Altes Museum.
Yet Humboldt was not only active in Prussia; he naturally became famous for his extensive research journeys to Latin America – a subject that links him in a special way to the Ibero-American Institute. Everything that the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt saw, studied, measured and compared there, he recorded in his American travel diaries, which have been housed at the Berlin State Library since 2013.
