Maximilian Prince of Wied-Neuwied and his Ethnographic Collection from Eastern Brazil, 1815-1817: Preliminary Notes

Abstract

Maximilian Prince of Wied’s Reise nach Brasilien (1820-1821) is one of the most important accounts of travels in Brazil in the early nineteenth century and a significant source of ethnographic information on the Botocudos and their neighbors. While both Wied’s writings and drawings relating to the latter subject matter have been widely discussed and appreciated, his ethnographic collection assembled on this occasion, now mostly preserved at the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, surprisingly has never received the attention it deserves as the second earliest truly ethnographic collection of Brazilian ethnography (preceded only by the Rodrigues Ferreira collection in Portugal). This preview of a more detailed discussion describes its scope and contents, the history of its collection and preservation, and its potential for a better knowledge of the historical ethnography of eastern Brazil.