By Philip G. Taylor

Stephan Franz Viktor was born on 14th September 1817 to the Hungarian Palatine Erzherzog Joseph Anton and his wife Hermine von Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, in Buda on the west bank of the River Danube, the then capital of the Kingdom of Hungary. A Palatine was a high-level official to European royal courts and Erzherzog is German for Archduke.

At this time, Hungary was a part of the Habsburg Monarchy (or Empire) and was ruled by the Austrian branch of the House of Habsberg-Lorraine, the dynastic capitol being in Vienna. Having studied political science in Vienna, Stephan then served in the Austrian army, rising to Lieutenant Field Marshal. He next served as a courtier in Vienna between 1839 and 1841, then travelled extensively throughout Europe until being appointed governor of Bohemia in 1843 by Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria.

It was during this period that the Austrian mineralogist Wilhelm Haidinger, in 1845, proposed the name Stephanite be given to a long known ore of silver in honour of the Archduke. Prior to this, the silver antimony sulphosalt was first recorded by Georgius Agricola in 1546 as “schwarzerz”, then later referred to as black silver ore or brittle silver ore. Stephanite remains the valid species name to this day, its type locality being the Freiberg mining district in Saxony, Germany.

Following his father’s death in early 1847, on 12th November that year Stephan inherited the title of Count Palatine of Hungary, at the age of 30. 

Portrait of Archduke Stephan Viktor

In March 1848, widespread demonstrations erupted throughout Hungary, which resulted in the dethroning of the House of Habsburg. Split between his loyalties to both his monarch and the Hungarian people, Archduke Stephan presented himself as leader of a revolutionary deputation to the Kaiser in Vienna and as a result fell into disgrace and was banned from the Viennese Court.

To escape the stigma of this episode, he moved back to the estates of his mother at Schaumburg near Gießen in central Germany and there built a magnificent hill-top castle to house his collections of books and natural history specimens.

Castle Schaumburg near Gießen, Germany 

From this point on he dedicated his remaining life to the building and curation of his collections and enjoyed a dynamic collaboration with scientists, mineralogists, collectors and museum curators throughout Europe. This halcyon period lasted only ten years, as while visiting Menton on the French Riviera, he died on 13th February 1867, having suffered from long term lung disease.

THE MINERAL COLLECTION

Archduke Stephan enjoyed all aspects of natural history and assembled notable zoological, botanical and mineralogical collections, a coin collection and a library of around 24,000 books on natural history and travel. 

The zoological and botanical collections comprised of living specimens; the wilder animals being housed in cages while the tame roamed the volcanic slopes around Castle Schaumburg. 

The botanical collections were to be found in magnificent gardens and the more tropical, in a magnificent greenhouse within the castle walls (sadly, this no longer exists within the castle today). 

The mineral collection, by far the biggest of his collections, and likely the best in the world at that time, grew to around 20,000 specimens. 

This was housed in the left wing of the castle, in a purpose designed mineral hall decorated with local marble, containing wall and free standing glass panelled cabinets.

A view of the inner-courtyard and Mineral Hall wing at Castle Schaumburg  

The Mineral Hall, Castle Schaumburg

It is said the collection was the equal of the national collections in Berlin, Vienna and Paris, but pre-dated these by some years.

The collection was (and remains) one of great importance because unlike some other contemporary collectors, he did not simply concentrate on showy yet relatively common species, but also on less aesthetic unusual specimens, often with interesting associations and from obscure localities. 

Evidence for this acquisition philosophy exists both in his published letters with Wilhelm von Haidinger, then mineral curator at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, and in the parts of his collection which still exist today.

MINERAL COLLECTION RECORDS

The Archduke Stephan Collection is also famous for the unique green card boxes he had specifically made to house the specimens and for the beautiful colour-printed, large-format labels bearing his coat of arms. 

Archduke (Erzherzog) Stephan label with his coat of arms

The handwritten information on the labels was written by the mineralogist Albrecht Schrauf of Vienna who worked on the collection at Schaumburg for extensive periods. 

Most of the specimens which still exist today have their original Erzherzog Stephan labels but, very sadly, many are now significantly reduced in size, often with much of the printed area cropped and discarded. This was done by an over-zealous and unsympathetic later curator, so as to fit each label into the respective specimen boxes! 

The only saving grace is in most cases the handwritten data, i.e. species, associated minerals and locality information, was retained together with the all-important catalogue number.

Cataloguing of the specimens appears meticulous and every specimen carries a two-part number in the form of a numerator and denominator. The catalogue number was always written on the specimen label and on a small square of paper which was glued to the underside, or side, of the specimen.

Detail showing the Archduke Stephan catalogue number (130/7) attached to an Olivenite specimen. Above this is a later Carl Rumpff label, dated 1889

Each catalogue number has two parts: the numerator (top) denotes the mineral species; the denominator (bottom), the acquisition number for that particular species. In the example shown, 130 indicates Olivenite as the primary species, with this specimen being the 7th Olivenite in the collection. Some examples of species designation within the cataloguing system are set out in the table below.

Examples of species designation to the Archduke Stephan catalogue number (numerator)

Departures from this nomenclature are observed in known parts of the collection; for example, specimens of Azurite are labelled as both 141 and 414, seemingly a typographic transposition. More problematic, and harder to explain, is when the same species carry two completely different numerators, e.g. 456 and ?60 are attributed to Chalcopyrite, the ‘?’ denoting an illegible number.

Most specimens also have attached a later Carl Rumpff rectangular label noting the species and location and C. Rumpff Collection, 1889.

Detail showing a later Carl Rumpff label 

Despite Archduke Stephan’s fall from grace within the Viennese Court, he was able to enjoy the recognition he deserved from contemporary scientists, curators, collectors and mineral dealers and continued to add new additions to his collection. 

Schaumburg became a magnet for collectors from across all of Europe and all visitors were made very welcome, no matter what their status. One notable event took place at Schaumburg in 1864, during a natural history conference in nearby Gießen, when 1,500 scientists visited to see the collections.

DISPERSAL OF THE COLLECTION

Following his death, the mineral collection was added to by Archduke Stephan’s family for a period of about 20 years, until problems arose with inheritance issues. 

The mineral collection was sold in its entirety to Carl Rumpff in 1889, whose purpose was to keep it intact and to retain it within Germany. Rumpff was the son-in-law of Friedrich Bayer, founder of Bayer Werke Leverkusen, and was also a partner in the company. 

Carl Heinrich Christian Ludwig Rumpff (30 April 1839 – 2 June 1889)

Sadly, within the same year of buying the collection and with barely a specimen unwrapped, Rumpff died and the collection was donated by his widow to the Museum of Natural History of the Humboldt University in Berlin. 

By the end of 1889, the museum had relocated its collections to the present day building, now more simply known as the Natural History Museum of Berlin (Museum für Naturkunde or MfN, also referred to as the Naturkundemuseum) where this large part of the Archduke Stephan collection can still be seen.

Due to the rapid succession of events pertaining to the collection throughout 1889, it would appear impossible that the C. Rumpff, 1889 labels we now see attached to the Archduke Stephan specimens were applied by Carl Rumpff himself or anyone associated with his estate. 

The only plausible explanation is that these were written and glued to the Archduke’s specimens by curators at the Berlin Natural History Museum, to record Carl Rumpff’s provenance to the collection. 

To corroborate this, no Carl Rumpff specimen labels are known to exist for these same specimens and it is possible to speculate that it was at this same time that many of the Archduke Stephan labels were trimmed to fit within the museum’s boxes and cabinets. The bequest also included tens of thousands of specimens from Rumpff’s own mineral collection, all pre-dating the Archduke Stephan acquisition.

In the years following the Rumpff bequest, several selected groups of specimens in the Archduke Stephan collection found their way into private collections. Up until about the late 1980s or 90s, the policy of most museums was to exchange or sell certain specimens with dealers and collectors.
This generated funds or acquired important new specimens in exchange for duplicate material or specimens no longer required as part of the collection. 

A museum’s attitude towards its acquisition and exchange policy varied according to the philosophy of successive curators and trustees. How this applied to the Natural History Museum of Berlin’s Department of Mineralogy is unknown, but at one time, at least, Archduke Stephan specimens were certainly released. 

One occasion may have been prior to or following the relocation and reorganisation of the collection to its present day premises at the Museum für Naturkunde, Invalidenstraße 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany. Most of the Archduke specimens which did find their way into other collections most probably still exist, but their whereabouts only become known when offered for sale or are exhibited.

- Special thanks to Jim and Gail Spann for granting us permission to share this article.