print
- Museum number
- 1860,1013.77
- Title
- Object: Robert H Schomburgk
- Description
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Portrait of Robert Hermann Schomburgk; half-length to left, glancing towards the viewer, wearing coat fastened with one button, waistcoat and dark neckerchief; medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London below; after Eddis. 1840
Lithograph with hand-colouring
- Production date
- 1840
- Dimensions
-
Height: 563 millimetres (sheet)
-
Width: 380 millimetres (sheet)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
-
This object inspired ‘Heritage’, a short story by Costa Rican writer and scholar Carlos Fonseca (b. 1987), which combines Schomburgk's biography with the author's experience of visiting Schomburgk's collection in the British Museum to imagine a personal family connection. This fictional story forms part of ‘Untold Microcosms: Latin American Writers in the British Museum’ (2022), a book project between the Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research (SDCELAR) at the British Museum and Hay Festival, in English and Spanish. For more information, visit: https://www.sdcelarbritishmuseum.org/collections/untold-microcosms-latin-american-writers-in-the-british-museum/
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This portrait depicts Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk, a German explorer, specialising in botany and geography who undertook a surveying expedition to former British Guiana (now Guyana), commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society between 1837-1840.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1860
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1860,1013.77
