Albertus Seba

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Albertus Seba showing a lizard in a bottle

Albertus or Albert Seba (May 12, 1665, Etzel near

cabinets of curiosities in the Netherlands during his time. He sold one of his cabinets in 1717 to Peter the Great of Russia. His later collections were auctioned after his death. He published descriptions of his collections in a lavishly illustrated 4 volume Thesaurus. His early work on taxonomy and natural history influenced Linnaeus
.

Career

View of the Kunstkamera across the Neva.
Title page of the Rerum Naturalium Thesaurus Vol. I

Born in Etzel, Seba moved to Amsterdam as an

apprentice and, around 1700, opened a pharmacy
near the harbour. Seba asked sailors and ship surgeons to bring exotic plants and animal products he could use for preparing drugs. Seba also started to collect snakes, birds, insects, shells, and lizards in his house.

From 1711, he delivered various medicines to the Russian court in

Robert Erskine (1674–1719), the tsar's head physician, and in early 1716 Peter the Great
bought the complete collection. In the following several years, Seba managed to develop another collection of natural specimens, which grew more extensive than the first.

Through Seba,

public museum.[1]

In October 1728, Seba had become a

$460,000 at an auction. In 2001, Taschen Books published a reprint of the Thesaurus, with a second printing in 2006.[3]

In 1735, Carl Linnaeus visited Seba twice. Linnaeus found Seba's collection to be useful for the classification system which Linnaeus was developing, and Linnaeus used many of Seba's specimens as holotypes for original descriptions of species.[4] Seba's inclusion of fantastic beasts such as the hydra influenced Linnaeus to include the "Paradoxa", species which may exist but which have not been found, in his Systema Naturae.[5]

Seba himself did not use Linnaeus' taxonomy, as it was published only a year before his death. However, he did organize his Thesaurus by physical similarities, leading to some similarities with Linnaeus' larger project.[3]

In 1752, several years after Seba's death, his second collection was auctioned in Amsterdam. Several objects were purchased by Russia's Academy of Sciences.

Taxa named in honor of Seba

Seba is commemorated in the

Oxyrhopus petola sebae.[4]

Gallery

  • Frontispiece of Seba's Thesaurus, referencing Frederik Ruysch's earlier 1710 Thesaurus Animalium Primus
    Frontispiece of Seba's Thesaurus, referencing Frederik Ruysch's earlier 1710 Thesaurus Animalium Primus
  • Engraving depicting different views of the hedgehog in the Thesaurus
    Engraving depicting different views of the hedgehog in the Thesaurus
  • The Hamburg Hydra, from the 1st volume (1734)
    The Hamburg Hydra, from the 1st volume (1734)

References

  1. ^ "Specimens from the Second Collection of Albertus Seba in Poland: the Natural History Cabinet of Anna Jabonowska (1728-1800)" (PDF). Bibliotheca Herpetologica. 6 (2): 16–20. 2006.It doesn't work
  2. ^ 'Schatryke kabinet der voornaamste seldzaamheden der natuur' van Albertus Seba, website Koninklijke Bibliotheek, retrieved 8 June 2022
  3. ^
    OCLC 286524743.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5
    . ("Seba", p. 240).
  5. OCLC 875644465.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )

Further reading

  • Driessen, J. (1996), Tsaar Peter de Grote en Zijn Amsterdamse Vrienden. (Dutch)
  • Driessen-Van het Reve, J.J. (2006), De Kunstkamera van Peter de Grote: De Hollandse Inbreng, Gereconstrueerd uit Brieven van Albert Seba en Johann Daniel Schumacher uit de Jaren 1711–1752. (Dutch)
  • Engel, Hendrik (1937), "The Life of Albert Seba", Svenska Linné-Sällskapets Årsskrift, vol. 20, pp. 75–100.

External links

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