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FIG. 1: Dr. Otto Finsch.
From Otto Finsch, Samoafahrten.
Reisen in Kaiser Wilhems-Land und
English-Neu-Guinea …, Leipzig:
Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn, 1888,
frontispiece.
Otto FINSCH
Images of the Pacifi c, 1879–1885
urlijke Historie (now Naturalis) in Leiden. In
1864 he became curator of the ethnological and
natural history collections of the Gesellschaft
Museum in Bremen, a role he held for fi fteen
years. He undertook several expeditions while
employed in Bremen, visiting North America in
1872, Lapland in 1873, and Western Siberia in
1876.
Also while in Bremen, Finsch published extensively
on ornithological and other topics. His
1865 Neu-Guinea und seine Bewohner (New
Guinea and Its Inhabitants) was to prove a particularly
prescient publication: The fi rst German
language monograph on New Guinea, it
included geographical, geological, zoological,
and botanical information, together with descriptions
of New Guinea’s indigenous inhabi-
FIG. 2 (below):
The Samoa.
From Otto Finsch, Samoafahrten.
Reisen in Kaiser Wilhems-Land und
English-Neu-Guinea …, Leipzig:
Ferdinand Hirt & Sohn, 1888, p. 5.
FIG. 3 (right):
Watercolor by Otto Finsch
(1892–97): Gilbert Islands
man with shark-tooth
trident.
Watercolor on paper (mount
missing).
Courtesy of the Division of
Anthropology, American Museum
of Natural History, New York. Finsch
Archive, tray 2.
Best known today for his involvement
in the German colonial annexation of
northeastern New Guinea and the Bismarck
Archipelago, Friedrich Hermann Otto Finsch
(1839–1917) was a self-taught ornithologist,
ethnologist, and museum curator. He was recognized
in his own lifetime as a “perceptive
observer” and “collector par excellence,” but
struggled to gain traction for his interpretations
of Pacifi c peoples and societies among his formally
trained peers (Luschan 1897: 76; Schmeltz
1894: 268). The town of Finschhafen in Papua
New Guinea’s Morobe Province still bears his
name, as do several bird species and a crater on
the moon (the latter designated posthumously
in his honor by the International Astronomical
Union in 1976).
Finsch was born in 1839 in the Prussian province
of Silesia in Bad Warmbrunn, a spa town
(now Cieplice Slaskie-Zdrój in southwestern
Poland). He was the youngest son of Moritz
Finsch (1800–1883), a glass painter and trader,
and Mathilde Finsch, née Leder (1810–1891).
From an early age, Finsch began sketching the
local landscape, fl ora, and fauna, as well as visitors
to the town’s public baths, foreshadowing
what were to be lasting interests in natural history
and ethnology. He also learned to stuff bird
skins and sold them as curiosities to local businesses
and tourists. He had little formal education,
attending only the local elementary school,
but received informal encouragement and support
from the school’s head teacher, the local
priest, and the physician responsible for visitors
to the baths.
In 1857 Finsch broke off a commercial apprenticeship
to his father and traveled to Pest
(now Budapest, Hungary), where he studied
briefl y at the Royal Hungarian University (now
the Eötvös Loránd University), supporting
himself through the preparation of natural
history specimens. In 1858 he moved on to
Rustschuk (now Russe, Bulgaria), remaining
there for the better part of two years tutoring
students and studying the region’s bird life.
Finsch returned to Germany in 1859 and, after
failing to fi nd satisfactory employment, moved
to the Netherlands. From 1861 he pursued his
interest in ornithology as assistant to German
ornithologist Hermann Schlegel (1804–1884),
then director of the Rijksmuseum van Natu-
By Hilary Howes