Museum History Journal

ISSN: 1936-9816 (Print) 1936-9824 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ymhj20

The Creation of the National Museum of Colombia

(1823–1830): A History of Collections, Collectors,
and Museums

María Paola Rodríguez-Prada

To cite this article: María Paola Rodríguez-Prada (2016) The Creation of the National Museum
of Colombia (1823–1830): A History of Collections, Collectors, and Museums, Museum History
Journal, 9:1, 29-44

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19369816.2015.1118261

Published online: 14 Jan 2016.

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 museum history journal, Vol. 9 No. 1, January, 2016, 29–44

The Creation of the National Museum of

Colombia (1823–1830): A History of
Collections, Collectors, and Museums
María Paola Rodríguez-Prada
National Museum of Colombia, Bogotá
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The National Museum of Colombia was inaugurated on 4 July 1824. This

museum was created along with a mining school in a post-revolutionary pol-
itical context during the wars of independence. Museums in South America
created in the early nineteenth century are seen as state formulations
embedded in nationalist rhetoric conceived within the newborn states. This
paper argues against such postulates through a global scientific-geopolitics per-
spective. It focuses on the analysis of a broad circulation of knowledge, scien-
tific practices, and individuals between Europe and some of the young Latin
American republics. Institutional material and immaterial traces that survive
today, such as scientific study collections, suggest the relevance of both indi-
vidual particulars and official purposes for a museum in which the private and
the public spheres converge in a scientific agenda of global character.

keywords knowledge circulation, scientific sociability, Mariano de Rivero,

Juan María Céspedes, Justin-Marie Goudot

Introduction
In 1823, the congress of the republic founded the National Museum of Colombia as
a museum of natural sciences in Bogotá along with the School of Mines. At the time,
Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) presided over Colombia, which included the depart-
ments of Venezuela, Cundinamarca, Quito, and Panama (historians refer to this
country as Grand Colombia). These two scientific and technical institutions, born
of the state’s will during the period of independence from Spanish colonial rule
and the subsequent creation of the republic, had a mission of research, teaching,
and ‘progress’. The National Museum and School of Mines were characterized by
the guiding political discourse that accorded them a privileged place in the nation-
building process. They exalted the country’s natural heritage as an element essential
to the prosperity of the republic and they were modelled on the Muséum d’Histoire

© Taylor & Francis 2016 DOI 10.1080/19369816.2015.1118261

 30 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

naturelle de Paris and the École Royale des Mines de Paris. From its opening until
the late 1890s, Colombia’s National Museum contained specimens from the
natural sciences, archaeology, and ethnography, as well as fine arts objects and,
from its second year, historical collections.1
Indeed, the National Museum and School of Mines were created partly as result of
a diplomatic mission held in Europe on behalf of Colombia’s government by one of
Colombia’s plenipotentiary ministers, Francisco Antonio Zea (1766–1822), sent to
Spain, London, and Paris in 1820. He was instructed by the president and the con-
gress to seek political recognition for the new country and financial resources to
support its wars of independence (1810–1824), as well as attempting to enhance
Colombia’s progress and prosperity by various means.2 The latter resulted in the
recruitment in Paris and London of several specialists in different scientific fields,
appointed to establish a natural history museum, a school of mines, a school of geo-
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graphers, and a lithography printing establishment in Bogotá. Eventually, after these

specialists had arrived in Colombia, and both Congress and Senate had discussed the
new institutions, the National Museum and School of Mines were finally established
and housed in the former quarters of Spain’s Royal Botanical Expedition (1783–
1809). Both institutions were inaugurated on 4 July 1824, the opening being
described in the newspapers with brief accounts of the museum collections.3
Soon, historical objects from the ongoing Independence wars started arriving in
the Museum, brought by government members and high-ranking military officers
from the battlefields in order to keep alive the memory of the republic’s sacrifices
and bravery. Some of these objects still exist in the National Museum’s collections.4
Otherwise, little is known about the collections and their display between 1824 and
1840 except for a few mentions left by foreign travellers.5 It seems they were mainly
study collections organized by the standards developed at the Muséum d’Histoire
naturelle as well as the École Royale des Mines de Paris, complying with the contract
agreements signed between the plenipotentiary minister and the scientists recruited
in Europe. Apparently some lectures were also held concerning botanical, chemistry,
and geological activities, and several research papers were published locally and
immediately sent to France, and translated into English and German.6 After 1824
government documents referred to the Museum as the National Museum of
Colombia.
The founding of the National Museum of Colombia is traditionally narrated
through the achievements of the personnel recruited by the plenipotentiary minister:
Mariano Eduardo de Rivero (1798–1857), appointed to create the Museum and the
School of Mines and serve as their director; Jean-Baptiste Boussingault (1802–
1887), who was expected to teach mineralogy and chemistry at the School of
Mines; and François-Désiré Roulin (1796–1874), physiologist (see Figure 1). Lesser-
known figures who are nevertheless always mentioned are Justin-Marie Goudot
(unknown–c. 1849) and Jacques Bourdon (1791–c. 1859), who acted as collectors
and preparators for the botanical, zoological, and entomological collections at the
National Museum of Colombia. A second approach to the history of the founding
stresses the supposed influence of European scholars such as Georges Cuvier (1769–
1832) and Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) who recommended Rivero and
Boussingault to President Bolívar. Finally, the Colombian plenipotentiary minister’s
 THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COLOMBIA (1823–1830) 31
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figure 1 Le Vagre, poisson de la Magdelaine. Selles, ustensiles [The Vagre, fish from
the Magdalena. Seat and utensils], c. 1823, François-Désiré Roulin. Watercolor, 20.3 ×
26.7 cm. Art collection from the Banco de la República, AP4085.

diplomatic mission itself is also seen as crucial to the museum’s foundation. Fran-
cisco Antonio Zea, the minister responsible, has been portrayed as a savant influ-
enced by the Enlightenment, largely because of his early involvement with Spain’s
Royal Botanical Expedition and his appointment as Director of the Royal Botanical
Garden in Madrid. All this, it was argued, explained the scientific character given to
the museum and mining school. Despite the lack of any evidence of explicit intent on
the part of Simón Bolívar in relation to the museum, the initiative to establish the
scientific institutions has frequently been attributed to him. Such interpretations
have been based on primary and secondary sources from the period, which have
been quoted for over a century without further investigation.7
This paper, by contrast, utilizes different documentary sources and unpublished
materials — from museum archives and collections — which allow us to connect
personal itineraries with transatlantic and global histories of science and technology.
In that sense, the early history of the museum can be situated in the broad geopoli-
tical context of the construction of knowledge in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies.8 This last approach is the key focus of this paper. It moves beyond
institutional or biographical histories to study the roles played by individuals parti-
cipating in scientific institutions, scholarly practices, and the circulation of knowl-
edge through travel, collecting, publications, and moving collections. In taking
 32 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

this approach I seek to uncover the scientific, social, and political scene in which the
founding of the National Museum of Colombia took place. This paper introduces
certain manuscripts mentioned by historians in 1859 but never transcribed, and
focuses on some of the individuals less privileged by historiography, new infor-
mation about whom sheds light on the way scholarly collecting took place in
South America’s national museums before the 1840s. These documents, together
with certain collections currently preserved in some museums, illustrate the daily
life of the museum beyond institutional historical accounts and provide elements
for a discussion of the personal interests and official goals of a museum, where
the public and private spheres converged in a global scientific programme.9
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Knowledge, practices, and individuals

In Paris in 1825, the young French botanist Adolphe Brongniart (1801–1876)
received a letter from the Director of the National Museum of Colombia,
Mariano Eduardo de Rivero, writing from Bogotá on 21 April.10 Rivero announced
a shipment of plants, collected by Dr Céspedes, to Brongniart, and hoped that
Brongniart would find something new in them. Rivero reported that he would be
leaving the following day for Peru, where he hoped to have news from Brongniart
since so far he had heard nothing either from Brongniart or their mutual friend,
Monsieur Audouin. Rivero also informed Brongniart that he had founded the
School of Mines and the Natural History Museum in Bogotá, the latter already pos-
sessing ‘jolie’ collections of birds, insects, reptiles, and some quadrupeds. Were
Brongniart interested in obtaining more plants, he should ask Monsieur Goudot.
Rivero closed his letter by sending his compliments to Brongniart’s parents, to Mon-
sieur Brochant, and other Parisian professors, ending with: ‘The friend who longs to
see you’. This letter, in fact, presented all the agents (institutions, objects, and people)
that the new national museum articulated and reshaped through the exchange of
plants, correspondence, and information across the Atlantic. From that point of
view, the National Museum of Colombia — far from constituting a space for the
building of national identity — appears as a transmitter or communicator of the
global undertakings of natural history.
The sender of the letter, Mariano Eduardo de Rivero, was born in Peru but
belonged to the French academic intelligentsia. He entered the Royal School of
Mines in Paris in 1818, where he graduated with honours in 1820, after having
visited metallurgical establishments and mines in France and England.11 Rivero —
as the evidence seems to indicate — moved in the same academic and technical
circles as Alexandre Brongniart (1770–1847), Chief Mining Engineer and father
of Adolphe Brongniart.12 Rivero was also hired as part of Zea’s diplomatic, finan-
cial, and scientific mission in 1820 on behalf of the young Republic of Colombia.
From 1822 onward, Rivero’s history was intertwined with the history of Colombia
and its desire to establish a School of Mines and a Natural History Museum.
By 1822 Adolphe Brongniart, the addressee of the letter, had made a reputation as
an authority in botany for his work Sur la classification et la distribution des végé-
taux fossiles en général, et sur ceux des terrains de sédiment supérieur en particulier,
 THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COLOMBIA (1823–1830) 33

a significant work in the emerging field of palaeobotany.13 Thus Rivero’s shipment

of plants to Brongniart and his comment are understandable. This also throws light
on why the Colombian museum director would insist on the accuracy of any data
regarding botanical species that Brongniart might request of the museum’s personnel
in the future, with particular regard to Goudot and Céspedes. This did, in fact, come
to pass in 1828, confirming the continuation of scientific exchanges with a museum
in the fledgling South American republic.
The associations between Rivero and Brongniart, and other individuals men-
tioned in the letter, represented a wide range of French scientific research and tech-
nical institutions. Alexandre Brongniart, Adolphe’s father, was also a naturalist,
zoologist, geologist, mineralogist, and palaeontologist, a member of the Académie
des sciences (1815) and Professor of Mineralogy at the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle
de Paris from 1822. In 1830 the younger Brongniart became an Aide-Naturaliste
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assigned to the Botany chair at the Museum of Natural History in Paris under Pro-
fessor René Desfontaines (1750–1833).14 He also took a course with Rivero, three
years his junior, at the École Royale des Mines de Paris. On May 13 1819, Brong-
niart was authorized by the School Board to complete his laboratory work under
the direction of Professor André Brochant de Villiers (1772–1840), during which
time Rivero would have been studying at that institution.15 A year before Rivero’s
letter, Brongniart joined chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas (1800–1884) and zoologist
Jean-Victor Audouin (1797–1841) to create a new journal, the Annales des sciences
naturelles, published by the Natural History Society.16 Thus we can see how Rivero
came to mention Audouin as a mutual acquaintance in his letter to Brongniart.
The letter from Rivero to Brongniart is thus an example of early nineteenth-century
scholarly correspondence, revealing scientific ties between individuals on both sides of
the Atlantic. It documents the circulation of botanical specimens, knowledge, and
scientific practices associated with the assembling and classification of study collec-
tions. Moreover, it reveals the existence of an international social network of individ-
uals trained in natural history with ties to institutions such as museums, science
academies, and technical training schools. More specifically, it suggests the National
Museum of Colombia became articulated with global scientific geopolitics emerging a
new relay for the compilation of data and specimens in South America, a subcontinent

figure 2 Nitratine du Pérou

[sodium nitrate]. Donation Rivero,
1822 Musée de minéralogie MINES
ParisTech 55371 ENSMP.
 34 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

figure 3 Glauberite. Donation

Rivero Musée de minéralogie MINES
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ParisTech 14464 ENSMP.

that after the fall of the Spanish empire, were now open for French and English scien-
tific and commercial interests (see Figures 2 and 3).17
The sections that follow analyse how the national museum established in Bogotá
became such a centre, at least for the years when that network was active. This
allows us firstly to discuss the role of the particular individuals, and, secondly,
what could be called the ‘ghostly’ existence of the museum. In fact, as mentioned
before, there are very few sources that directly reflect what the museum was actually
like in terms of space, distribution of the collections, or visitors, the features that we
tend to use to describe the physical reality of this kind of institution. However, the
museum existed in another way, namely through the articulation of different scien-
tific circles and the work of the people which made of the museum the centre of their
lives and of the new disciplines they were trying to shape.

Individuals and circulation of knowledge in the emerging

republics
As part of his diplomatic mission, Francisco Antonio Zea hired in Paris a group of
young graduates from France’s most reputable scientific and technical training insti-
tutions. In Colombia it was accepted that the survey and exploitation of natural
resources would be essential for its development and progress. As noted above,
Rivero was one of those graduates hired by Zea. Rivero’s contract, dated 1 May
1822 in Paris, set out his assignment on behalf of Colombia:
The undersigned, Special Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Colom-
bia, pursuant to the orders of his Government to facilitate in Europe the means to
promote public education, especially in the fields directly concerning the prosperity of
the nation, has entered into the following contract with Mr Mariano Eduardo Rivero,
native of Peru and one of the most distinguished students of the Royal School of
Mines and the Museum of Natural History in Paris, […].18
The second of four clauses sets out the terms of establishing the Museum:
 THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COLOMBIA (1823–1830) 35

Article 2: He shall contribute to the formation of the Natural History Museum, and
submit a plan to the Government, designating the place he believes to be best suited
and providing as many instructions as needed to facilitate its soonest and most complete
establishment.
The expedition undertaken by the young men recruited by Zea drew interest from
some of Paris’ scholars. They assigned the travellers scientific observations to
make and specimens to collect. Rivero thus travelled to Colombia with requisitions
from Georges Cuvier, Alexander von Humboldt, and Adolphe Brongniart.19 Cuvier
asked Rivero to pursue specific data and specimens during his expedition, saying:
‘[…] I have no need to recommend you to be zealous in your research nor accurate
with your shipments; you know too well the importance of the expedition you will
undertake, to neglect the slightest opportunity to add to scientific discoveries’. While
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Colombia’s government was interested in importing scientific expertise from France,

as indicated in the above contract clauses, for the French professors the hiring of
Rivero was also of great importance: besides the common goal of building new
scientific knowledge, Rivero’s own experience in Colombia would allow the delivery
of reliable data and new discoveries from that territory.
During preparations for his travels to Colombia, Rivero received a number of rec-
ommendations from Adolphe Brongniart that appeared in a note dated 3 July 1822,
preserved among the papers of Juan María Céspedes, who is the same Dr Céspedes
that Rivero mentions in his letter to Brongniart. The recommendations and requests
made by Brongniart to Rivero deal with two main subjects: plant fossils and living
plants.20 The technical specifications of such requests suggest that Rivero had some
knowledge of botanical terms concerning the requested botanical specimens, or
would have been able to interpret and transmit them to an expert in the field. The
existence of this manuscript in the documents of Juan María Céspedes, the reference
to Céspedes in Rivero’s letter to Brongniart, and reference in the same letter to
Goudot, a naturalist working at the Colombian museum, broadens the spectrum
of ‘erudite sociability’ beyond the Parisian context. Rivero’s contract and Cuvier’s
recommendation, as well as the ensemble of letters between Brongniart and
Rivero, give clues about specimens found among the National Museum of Colom-
bia’s natural history collections, their classification and their exchanges with other
institutions. Furthermore, those documents open a discussion on the notion of a uni-
lateral transfer of knowledge to the fledgling republic. Collections, epistolary com-
munications, and scientific networks suggest a collective construction of knowledge
through the dynamic interrelationships between the objects of study, research pro-
cedures, and practices of transmission or circulation.

Academies, societies, and museums

The 1823 law that established the Museum and School of Mines, and a decree issued
the same year regulating the study of botany, included the duties and name of the
regent in charge, Professor Juan María Céspedes.21 He was forty-seven at the
time, twenty-two years Rivero’s senior. Little is known of Céspedes’ training as a
botanist, though he appears to have taught himself from the works of Carl Linnaeus
 36 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

(1707–1778).22 Born in Tuluá, in the former province of Cauca, Céspedes studied

civil law and theology in Santafé [de Bogotá], the capital of the Viceroyalty of
New Granada (est. 1717) during colonial rule.23 He obtained a doctorate in theol-
ogy, became a priest and was then assigned the parish of Caloto, a town north
of Popayán, where he — as many other priests from colonial Spanish America —
botanized and cultivated his love for botany.24
During the period of political emancipation and revolution Céspedes maintained
ties to the revolutionary armies. He accompanied troops as their chaplain into the
mountainous Cauca region between 1812 and 1818, south to the city of Pasto,
back to Popayán, northward to Yolombó and Rionegro in the province of Antio-
quia, up into the Central Cordillera, then finding shelter in Suaza in the jurisdiction
of Timaná, on the western slope of the Eastern Cordillera in the upper reaches of the
Magdalena River.25 Céspedes was later assigned to the parishes of Sátiva, Itoco, and
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Charalá, until returning to Bogotá in 1820. These parishes were also located for the
most part in the Andes, north-east of Bogotá, in the mountainous Eastern Cordillera
region at elevations ranging from 1200 to 2600 m above sea level. His travels
allowed Céspedes to study the botany of these places over a ten-year period. His
field experience and botanical knowledge would make him the right person to
chair the museum’s Botany Department. It is no surprise that Rivero mentioned to
Brongniart that Céspedes knew the flora in the territory fairly well.26
The extent of Céspedes work at the museum in Bogotá may be acknowledged
through Rivero’s comments. He cited Céspedes’ work associated with the museum
in a reference to a botanical garden project beginning in 1823. Rivero’s subsequent
correspondence with Humboldt reports Céspedes’ survey of the natural species in
the San Augustin region made alongside Matís, another illustrator who had made
sketches of the archaeological remains in the region and was formerly employed
by the Royal Botanical Expedition led by José Celestino Mutis (1732–1808).27 By
early 1826, the ‘Botany Professor’ — that is, Céspedes — had deposited ‘115
genera of all kinds, according to the Linnaean system’ into the Museum’s herbar-
ium.28 The establishment of the national museum therefore articulated the endea-
vours of Céspedes — a priest trained in the years of colonial administration —
with the new undertakings which were being pursued in the laboratories of Paris.
Not only that: Céspedes himself was a relay that articulated the international pur-
suits of botany and botanists. He also participated in erudite societies in the
region, France, and elsewhere in Europe.29 Between 1825 and 1830, there are
records of Céspedes’ correspondence with Dr Miller (Secretary of the Society for
the Encouragement of Horticulture and Agriculture and the Arts) in Jamaica; Dr
Felix Pascalis Ouviere (1762–1833), founder of the Linnean Society of New York;
the Permanent Secretary of the Linnean Society of Paris, Arsène Thiebaut of Ber-
neaud (1777–1850); José María Vargas (1786–1854) and José Joaquín González
(unknown) of the Medical Instruction Society of Caracas; Joseph Sabine (1770–
1837), Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society of London; and Adolphe Brong-
niart in Paris (28 April 1828). These letters refer to exchanges of specimens and data,
experiments in botanical gardens, institutional memberships, and specialized jour-
nals published by these organizations. Such epistolary testimonies continue to be rel-
evant to an overall understanding of the scholarly practices of the Colombian
 THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COLOMBIA (1823–1830) 37

museum during its first five years. The scope of these relationships between Céspedes
and the learned societies have yet to be studied in depth, but a superficial study of
them illuminates the wide range of links between the Colombian Museum and
various American and European scientific and technical institutions during the
Museum’s first five years.30

Collection, classification, display, and study collections

Céspedes’ botanical training, despite his deep knowledge of the local flora and the
intricate geography of the territory, was limited to book learning of the Linnaean
system and to practices established by Jose Celestino Mutis during Spanish colonial
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rule. Céspedes did important work collecting, classifying, and experimenting, and
his toponymy for Colombia was utilized in later botanical studies. However,
Goudot’s more specialized disciplinary training and his ties to the Muséum d’His-
toire naturelle de Paris would explain why Rivero advised Brongniart to consult
Goudot for more information about the plants sent to Paris.
Justin-Marie Goudot, like Rivero, was in Paris when hired by Zea in 1822 to
conduct studies in Colombia and work for its newly established museum. Their con-
tractual agreement signed on 28 May stated that Goudot,
one of the most distinguished young students at the Museum of Natural History in Paris,
particularly in the field of preparing and compiling zoological collections, […] is obliged
to travel to Colombia and remain there for six years as an employee of the Museum to be
established, as a preparator and classifier, focusing primarily on ichthyology, but
working also in the other branches to help create the Museum, […].31

The contract partially confirms Goudot’s scientific expertise, but additional primary
sources clarify his links to the Museum and shed light on the particular fields in
which he was most interested. A Justin Goudot signature appears in the registration
book for a course titled Zoology of Insects and Microscopic Animals taught by
Lamarck at the Muséum in 1822. Between 1821 and 1823, Professor Pierre-André
Latreille (1762–1833) Aide-Naturaliste and guard at the Muséum in the Department
of Zoology of Insects and Crustaceans took Lamarck’s place teaching these
classes.32 Hence, Goudot would have taken his zoology classes with Latreille in
1822 and attended the botany lectures at the Muséum.
Once in Colombia, Goudot sent data to the circle of Muséum professors in Paris
and ‘descriptions and drawings’ of ‘new items’ to his younger brother, Jules-Prosper
Goudot (1803–unknown), who was also a naturalist and traveller educated at the
Muséum. 33 A third brother of Justin-Marie Goudot, Étienne Goudot [Estevan
Goudot], was in Bogotá and, according to documents from the period figured
actively there in 1825, and again between 1834 and 1838, as a professor of chem-
istry and as a pharmacologist.34 Between the 1830s and 1850s, all three Goudot
brothers were registered members of the Société d’Émulation du Département du
Jura in their hometown of Lons-le-Saunier. During this period the brothers made
several donations to the Society: in September 1837, Étienne donated ‘several
natural history objects and others related to “industry”, samples from some gold,
 38 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

zinc and sulphide iron mines, along with Peruvian figurines made in gold, jasper and
terracotta’;35 in April 1839, Jules-Prosper donated various objects crafted by the
natives of Madagascar;36 and in 1843, Justin-Marie donated sixty-two
exotic birds, marine specimens, beetles, lobsters, and shells, apparently all from
Colombia.37 Justin-Marie’s donation coincided with his departure from Colombia
and return to France in 1842, where he remained until 1846.38
The nature of Justin-Marie’s natural history undertakings are shown by the
variety and quality of the collections he took with him to Europe (see Figure 4).
Some of them were deposited at the Muséum in Paris and others were offered for
sale to private collectors.39 The importance of the Muséum’s ornithological speci-
mens donated by Goudot can be deduced from the number of studies and descrip-
tions that also began to be published in 1843 in the Revue de la Société
Zoologique Cuvierienne.40 The samples that Goudot took to Europe allow for
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speculation regarding specimens he also collected for the Colombian museum;

they provide possible clues about the nature of the specimens in Colombia’s
museum collections during that period. The same newspaper article dated 22
January 1826 that spoke of Professor Céspedes’ contributions to the Museum’s her-
barium referred to the zoology and botany collections as well:
[…] In the field of Zoology, the professor of entomology has classified all of the orders
with 295 genera now displayed in their own glass cases, leaving others prepared for any
repairs that may become necessary in the future. […] The natural history collector
[Goudot] has increased the Museum’s collection twofold with the birds, amphibians,
fish, insects, etc. listed in the catalogue I have included and to which there have been
added several species of plants and mineral samples. The botany professor [Céspedes]
has deposited in the herbarium, which was empty, 115 genera of all kinds, according
to the Linnaean system, and 45 others have been added and organized by the natural
history collector [Goudot].41

Colombia’s museum collections during its founding period were study collections
and their formation, description and classification employed, transferred, revised,
or reinstated knowledge, based on the local in situ experiences of each of the
actors involved in their constitution. This is particularly apparent in the classifi-
cation and ordering of objects in the museum. For mineralogical samples, Rivero
used Réné Haüy’s (1743–1822) method — as recorded in the newspaper article pub-
lished in 1824 after the Museum’s opening42 — according to the system applied at
the École Royale des Mines de Paris where Haüy had reorganized collections during
his teaching there and at the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle. For botanical classifi-
cation, as seen above, Céspedes applied the Linnaean system, but Goudot with his
Parisian training would maybe have applied Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu’s
method.43 Having studied with Latreille, Lamarck’s Aide-Naturaliste, Goudot and
Bourdon44 would certainly apply Lamarck’s zoological system when organizing
the collections. In such a way, the museum of Bogotá hosted — as did many other
museums — collections classified by people using different classificatory principles
for the several different natural classes, originating in different periods, which
could indeed represent contradicting philosophies of nature. These classified zoolo-
gical, botanical and mineralogical specimens were later incorporated into the
 THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COLOMBIA (1823–1830) 39
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figure 4 Aulonemia Quecko Goudt. Alf. Riocreux del. / Me . Douliot sc. / N. Rémond imp.
Ann. des Scienc. nat. 3e Série — Bot. Tom. 5. Pl. 4 (1846). Bibliothèque de l’École des Mines
de Paris, MINES ParisTech.
 40 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

National Museum of Colombia within an official government framework, but

shaped by private interests and individuals’ specific training as detailed here.
To conclude, the impact on scientific agendas of the scholarly practices of Rivero,
Céspedes, and Goudot particularly within the private sphere of their own interests,
and the public peculiarities of the museum’s state institutional goals, shaped the fra-
mework of the museum’s work. Our analysis proposed a research methodology that
compensated for the paucity of evidence (manuscripts, scientific papers, and collec-
tions) relating to the museum by restoring information about savant practices (col-
lecting, describing, classifying, exchanging data and samples) carried out by actors
involved in the founding period of the National Museum of Colombia. Likewise,
this review broadens the spectrum of historical studies beyond traditional individual
biography, confirming the complex dynamics between public and private interests,
whose material traces can be found today in Colombian, Peruvian, and French
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museums. The above constitutes in part the foundations for a contemporary cultural
heritage of museums and shows how the history of museums cannot be limited to
national boundaries or institutional repositories. To understand the history of a
museum, one should cross the frontiers created by the historiography of the last
century.

Notes
1 The National Museum of Colombia was soon des Sciences Naturelles et de Géologie. In
established as a ‘site of memory’ particularly London The Quarterly Journal of Science,
because of the history collections that entered Literature, and The Arts and The
during 1824, by volition of the nation’s leading Philosophical Magazine and Journal:
characters. These were direct testimony of the Comprehending the Various Branches of
Independence wars; some still remain as remin- Science, the Liberal and Fine Arts […]. In
ders of the origins of the republic. Nuremberg Journal für Chemie und Physik
2 Banco de la República de Colombia (BR), [Jahrbuch der Chemie und Physik], in Leipzig
Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango (BLAA), Raros y the Annalen der Physik, and in Breslau Archiv
Manuscritos, MSS 322. See also Archivo für Bergbau und Hüttenwesen.
General de la Nación (AGN), Archivo 7 See the official gazette from this epoch and three
Histórico Legislativo Congreso de la compendiums of scientific memoirs and travel
República, Miscelánea 1820–1823, II, f. 84. accounts, published by Rivero, Roulin, and
3 [s.a.], ‘Museo Colombiano’, Gaceta de Boussingault. These publications are known in
Colombia, trim. 11, 144 (18.VII.1824). Colombia through translations from French
4 Cf. Museo Nacional de Colombia, collections into Spanish beginning in 1849 by Joaquin
registered under numbers: 98, 100, 101, 102, Acosta (1800–1852), director of the museum
103, 104, 109, 117, 118, 205, 874, 891, 892, during the 1830s. The earliest secondary
1381, and 2552. sources of an official nature are from 1860
5 J. P. Hamilton, Travels Through the Interior and based on historical notes left by one of the
Provinces of Columbia, I (London: John Colombian scientific societies, the New
Murray, 1827), 182; J. Steuart, Bogotá in Granada Society of Naturalists, and on the writ-
1836–7. Being a Narrative of an Expedition to ings of German diplomat H. A. Schumacher.
the Capital of New-Grenade, and a Residence This has served as the quintessential resource
there of Eleven Months (New York: Harper & on the founding chapter of the museum.
Brothers, 1838), p. 131. F. Vezga, La Expedición Botánica (Bogotá: Ed.
6 See, for example, in Paris the Annales de Chimie Minerva S.A., 1936 [1860]); H. A. Schumacher,
et de Physique, Annales des Mines, and Bulletin Südamerikanische Studien, drei Lebens- Und
 THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COLOMBIA (1823–1830) 41

Cultur-Bilder: Mútis, Cáldas, Codazzi, 1760– Fonds Ancien (FA), École Royale des Mines:
1860 (Berlin: Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Sohn, Procès-Verbaux du Conseil de l’École du 12
Königliche Hofbuchhandlung, 1884); M. février 1820 au 20 déc. 1825 Inclusivement, t.
Combes, Pauvre et aventureuse bourgeoisie 2, ff. 32, 33, 36–37. There are records of
Roulin & ses amis 1796-1874 (Paris: J. Rivero’s observations and finds during his aca-
Peyronnet et Cie, 1928). Since 1990, scholars demic travels to Madrid and Freiberg beginning
studying the role of the museum in Colombia’s in 1821, as well as publications of several of his
national identity discourse or national rhetoric, chemical analyses. The Mining Annals, edited
or in the history of archaeological collections by the French Conseil général des mines,
and the history of science, have made use of include a ‘Note on Sodium Nitrate Discovered
this historiography. See for instance, in the Tarapaca District of Peru’ signed by
O. Restrepo Forero, ‘Naturalistas, Saber y Rivero.
Sociedad en Colombia’, in Historia Natural y 12 Brongniart senior delivered a lecture on magne-
Ciencias Naturales, ed. by C. E. Vasco, site at the Academy of Sciences in 1822 which uti-
D. Obregón, and L. E. Orozco Silva, III lized the analysis of the substance made in 1821
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(Bogotá: Colciencias, 1993), 23–327; by Rivero, from specimens collected in Vallecas

M. Segura, Itinerario del Museo Nacional de (near Madrid). Rivero, [‘sur la magnésite de
Colombia 1823–1994 (Bogotá: Museo Vallecas‘], in Alex. Brongniart, ‘Notice sur la
Nacional de Colombia, 1995); D. Soto Magnésite du Bassin de Paris, et sur le gisement
Arango, Francisco Antonio Zea, un criollo ilus- de cette roche dans divers lieux’, Ann. Mines.,
trado (Madrid: Doce Calles, Colciencias, VII (1822), 304–06. Similarly, the products of
Rudecolombia, 2000); C. I. Botero Cuervo, El several of Rivero’s finds on trips to France and
redescubrimiento del pasado prehispánico de Spain beginning in 1821, and the substance ana-
Colombia: viajeros, arqueólogos y coleccionis- lysed in his 1822 article on the sodium nitrate of
tas 1820–1945 (Bogotá: Icanh, Universidad de Tarapaca in Peru, remain a part of the collection
los Andes, 2006); V. M. Rodríguez Sarmiento, of the Musée de Minéralogie at the École natio-
‘La Fundación del Museo Nacional de nale supérieure des mines in Paris associated
Colombia, Gabinetes de curiosidades, Órdenes with ‘[Alexandre ] Brongniart’. See ENSMP–
discursivos y Retóricas nacionales’, in X Mines ParisTech, Musée de Minéralogie. Base
Salones Regionales de Artistas […] (Bogotá: des données des collections shows that Rivero
Ministerio de Cultura, 2004), pp. 99–118; collected and donated collection exhibit
A. C. Pérez Benavides, ‘La nación representada numbers: 698ENSMP-halite; 14464ENSMP-
en las colecciones del Museo. ¿Una puesta en glauberite; 22917ENSMP-sepiolite magnesite;
escena del Mestizaje? Colombia 1880–1910’ 41022ENSMP-grossular; 47233ENSMP-andalu-
(paper presented at the XI Cátedra Anual de site (cross-stone); 55371ENSMP-nitratine; and
Historia Ernesto Restrepo Tirado, Museo 68285ENSMP-quartz (citrine). The information
Nacional de Colombia, October 2006). associated with these pieces identifies the speci-
8 M. Lucena Giraldo, Historia de un cosmopolita: mens, their provenance, 1822 as the year speci-
José María Lanz y la Fundación de la Ingeniería men 55371ENSMP was collected. [The author
de Caminos en España y América (Madrid: thanks Mdm. Lydie Touret and M. Didier
Colegio de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Nectoux, successive curators whom during
Puertos, 2005); M.–P. Rodríguez Prada, Le 2010 and 2014 kindly granted her access to the
Musée National de Colombie 1823–1830. collections]. For Rivero’s contributions to scienti-
Histoire d’une création (Paris: L’Harmattan, fic collections in Paris and Sèvres see Rodríguez
2013). Prada, ‘Colecciones, registros e investigación: el
9 R. Wittman, Architecture, Print Culture, and the caso del aerolito de Santa Rosa de Viterbo en el
Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century France Museo Nacional de Colombia (1810–1830)’, in
(New York and London: Routledge, 2007). Ensaios do Seminário-Oficina em Valoraçao de
10 Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle Acervos Museológicos, ed. by Organizaçao dos
(MNHN), Bibliothèque Centrale (BC), Fonds Estados Ibero-Americanos para a Educação e
Ancien (FA), MS 1970, AD. Brongniart, Vol. ciencia e a Cultura (Brasilia: Ibermuseus, 2014),
22, 348. pp. 100–13.
11 M.–P. Rodríguez Prada, pp. 217, 270. See also 13 J. B. Dumas, ‘Éloge de MM. Alexandre
ENSMP–Mines ParisTech, Bibliothèque (B), Brongniart et Adolphe Brongniart Membres de
 42 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

l’Académie […]’, in Mém. de l’Acad. des Sc. de del Gobierno’, Gaceta de Colombia, trim. 9,
l’Inst. de France, T. XXXIX (Paris: 111 (30 November 1823).
Firmin-Didot, 1877), xxxviij–cxix, particularly 22 J. J. Ortiz and G. E. Martínez M., Bocetos
lxx, lxxj. In this work, Brongniart used the prin- Biográficos de Juan María Céspedes, ed. by
ciples from the comparative anatomy of living Victor Manuel Patiño (Cali: Imp.
plants for classifying fossil plants. Departamental, 1967–1968); G. Hernández de
14 Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle, Inauguration des Alba, ‘Un olvidado botánico del siglo XIX:
Nouvelles Galeries de Zoologie (Paris: Juan María Céspedes’, Revista de la Acad.
Imprimeries Réunies, 1889), [s.p.]. colombiana de Ciencias exactas, físicas y natur-
15 Rivero’s studies took place between 28 August ales, 16.60 (1986), 91–98. G. Andrade
1818 and 1 June 1820. Cf. ENSMP–Mines González, Juan María Céspedes y su época
ParisTech, B, FA, ‘École Royale des Mines. (Bogotá: Ed. Kelly, 1989).
Élèves Étrangers. État Nominatif contenant les 23 Today Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and
âges, […] date de leur admission à l’École Venezuela.
Royale des Mines, &a.’ in Direction d’Études 24 Podgorny, ‘Fossil Dealers’.
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(DE), Registre des Élèves. //1ér Registre de la 25 AGN, SAA-I., 25 Purificaciones, 3, ff. 200–14,
DE 1817–1906+élèves étrangers 1817–1901, ‘Expediente de Juan María Céspedes, con docu-
f. 135. The authorization for Brongniart’s mentos probatorios fechados entre diciembre
attendance to the laboratory is in: ENSMP– 1817 y febrero de 1818’, f. 201.
Mines ParisTech–B, FA, École Royale des 26 MNHN–BC, FA, Ms. 1970, Vol. 22 piece 347.
Mines: Procès-Verbaux du Conseil de l’École Also, a report on the poisonous milk of Hura
du 24 déc. 1816 au 29 déc. 1819 crepitans written by Rivero and Boussingault
Inclusivement, t. 1, f. 335. Brochant is later in 1824 credits Céspedes for providing them
mentioned in Rivero’s 1825 letter. with information on the tree. Annales de
16 G. St.-Hilaire, Rapport verbal fait à l’Académie Chimie et de Physique, 28 (1825), 430–35.
Royale des Sciences, séance du 22 août 1824, 27 ‘Diario de San Agustín a las Tapias’, referenced
[…] sur Les Annales des sciences Naturelles by Andrade González, pp. 48–62.
[…] (Paris: 1824[ ?]). 28 J. Torres, ‘Museo Nacional’, Gaceta de
17 Cf. I. Podgorny, ‘Fossil Dealers, the Practices of Colombia, trim. 18, 223 (22 January 1826).
Comparative Anatomy and British Diplomacy Jerónimo Torres (1772–1839) was the director
in Latin America, 1820–1840’, The British of the National Museum between 1825 and
Journal for the History of Science, 46.4 1826, following the departure of Mariano de
(2013), 647–74. Rivero.
18 AGN, SC, EOR, Generales y Civiles 1819– 29 Cf. manuscripts already referenced from the
1825, 98, 86, f. 25. BNC [F. PINEDA 826] and complemented by
19 Cf. Missive from Cuvier that Rivero transcribes other primary sources partially transcribed by
to Zea in a letter dated at Portsmouth (UK), ‘A Ortiz y Martínez M., pp. 49, 51–55, 57–58
bordo del [navío] New York 11 de Octubre de and by Andrade González, pp. 62–67, 75–76,
1822’ [AGN, SC, EOR, Generales y Civiles 79–81, 83.
1819–1825, 98, 85, f. 19]. Cuvier was a 30 In 1844, Céspedes’ botanical research was
Professor at the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle recognized in France. The second volume in
de Paris, Director of the same between 1822 the ‘Botany’ series published in Paris in the
and 1823, and Permanent Secretary of the Annales des Sciences naturelles edited by
Academy of Sciences in Paris from 1803. Brongniart and botanist Joseph Decaisne
20 Cf. ‘Note remise à Mr Rivero par Adolphe (1807–1882) included a couple of plant descrip-
Brongniart’, dated ‘Le 3 juillet 1822’, signed tions by Justin-Marie Goudot, one of which —
‘Adolphe Brongniart/ Rue St. Dominique N° ‘Cespedesia, Gen. Nov.’ — was named after
78 à Paris/ France’, Bibilioteca Nacional de Céspedes. The author is the same M. Goudot
Colombia (BNC), F. Pineda 826, Documentos employed at the Colombian Museum to whom
científicos de Juan Maria Céspedes 1776– Rivero referred in his letter of April 1825
1848, piece 27. addressed to Brongniart in Paris. The plants
21 [s.a.], ‘Leyes: El senado y cámara de represen- that accompanied that letter had been collected
tantes […], Gaceta de Colombia, trim. 8, 101 by Céspedes. Just. Goudot, ‘Cespedesia, Gen.
(21 September 1823); [s.a.], ‘Interior: Decreto Nov.; Auctore Just. Goudot. (Godoyœ sp.
 THE CREATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF COLOMBIA (1823–1830) 43

Bonplan Mss.)’, Ann. Sc. Nat., 3e série, Étienne Goudot was noted to be a pharmacol-
Botanique, II (1844), 368–72. ogist in Bogotá in 1837, between 1843 and
31 AGN, SR, 75 Peticiones y Solicitudes, 10, D2, 1850, he appeared to be dedicated to com-
f. 37. merce in Paris and he returned back to
32 P. Corsi, Lamarck: Genèse et enjeux du transfor- Colombia because in 1852 he was described
misme, 1779–1830 (Paris: CNRS Editions, as a pharmacologist in Panamá. Jules-Prosper
2001), pp. 329, 346. Cf. Goudot’s signature in appeared in 1837 as a naturalist settled in
the subscription’s book is digitalized at CNRS, Paris, he must have travelled abroad again as
‘Les auditeurs aux cours de Jean-Baptiste in 1839, it is mentioned that he was arriving
Lamarck’, in Corsi, Œuvres et rayonnement de to France from Madagascar and donated
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, <http://www.lamarck. once more several collections; in 1843 he
cnrs.fr/auditeurs/index.php?rech=gene&send= lived in Paris but migrated back to
audit&nom=Goudot&prenom=Justin> Madagascar, for the Société’s 1844 and 1855
[accessed 9 November 2007]. annual reports attested that Jules-Prosper was
33 In 1828 Jules-Prosper Goudot, preparing for a a corresponding member established in
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trip to Madagascar, wrote on 23 April to the Madagascar. Later than 1850, the Goudot
professors at the Muséum, defending his com- brothers ceased to be mentioned in the
mitment to the natural sciences. Among other Société’s annual reports.
considerations, he mentions the scientific 39 J. Linden and J.-E. Planchon, Troisième voyage
careers of his two brothers on another conti- de J. Linden dans les parties intertropicales de
nent, and the drawings he had just received l’Amérique […], Ie partie (Bruxelles: M. Ayez,
from one of his zoologist brothers at the 1863), p. xlv.
Museum in Bogotá. He adds that he awaits 40 F. Lafresnaye, ‘Quelques Oiseaux nouveaux ou
another shipment of various objects, including peu connus de Colombie’, Rev. Zoologique.
‘descriptions and drawings’ of a large numbers La Soc. Cuvierienne, 6e année (March 1843),
of fish from the Magdalena River, painted and 68–70; J. Bourcier, ‘Oiseaux Mouches nou-
described by another of his brothers, a professor veaux ou mal connus’, ibid., pp. 70–73;
of chemistry and director of salt mines near Lafresnaye, ‘Quelques nouvelles espèces
Bogotá. [Archives Nationales (AN), AJ15 d’Oiseaux nouveaux’, Rev. Zool., 6e année
MNHN, 575 Voyages et Missions, Goudot (April 1843), 97–104.
(Afrique, 1823–1830), 1, 2, piece 2 ‘Voyage à 41 Torres, trim. 18, 223 (22 January 1826).
Madagascar 1828 1829’. Also cf. E. R. Goudot would be the ‘natural history collector’
Brygoo, ‘Les Goudot, des voyageurs naturalistes mentioned since his colleague Jacques Bourdon,
bien mal connus’, Histoire et Nature, 17–18 trained as a surgeon, would be the preparator in
(1980–1981), 33–34]. charge primarily of entomology. (For Bourdon’s
34 Cf. Wan-Swietten, ‘Artículo Comunicado’, medical training, cf. M.–P. Rodríguez Prada, Le
Gaceta de Colombia, trim. 15, 194 (3 July Musée National de Colombie 1823–1830,
1825); E. Goudot, Honorables Señores de la pp. 283–84. Bourdon’s manuscript contract
Cámara de Representantes (Bogotá: N. Lora, signed with Zea is in AGN, SR, 75, 10, D2,
1834). L. M. Santamaría, Manifestación f. 40).
(Imprenta de N. Lora, 1836). 42 [s.a.], ‘Museo Colombiano‘, trim. 11, 144 (18
35 Travaux de la Société d’Émulation du July 1824).
Département du Jura, pendant l’année 1837 43 J.-M. Drouin, ‘Collecte, observation et classifi-
(Lons-le-Saunier: Frédéric Gauthier, 1838), cation chez Réné Desfontaines (1750–1833)’,
p. 176. in Le Muséum au premier siècle de son histoire,
36 Travaux de la Société […], pendant l’année 1838 ed. by Claude Blanckaert, et al. (Paris: Muséum
et 1839 (Lons-le-Saunier: Frédéric Gauthier, national d’Histoire naturelle, Archives, 1997),
1840), p. 174. pp. 263–76.
37 Travaux de la Société […], pendant l’année 1843 44 Bourdon’s signature also appears in Lamarck’s
(Lons-le-Saunier: Frédéric Gauthier, 1844), courses registration book under numbers 28
p. 101. and 23, for years 1813 and 1817. Cf. CNRS,
38 Throughout 1843 and 1846, Justin-Marie ‘Les auditeurs aux cours’, in Corsi, Œuvres et
Goudot settled in Paris as a naturalist; rayonnement.
 44 MARÍA PAOLA RODRÍGUEZ-PRADA

Notes on contributor
Correspondence to: María Paola Rodríguez-Prada, Curadora Jefe del Departamento
de Historia, Museo Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 7 No. 28-66, Bogotá D.C.,
Colombia. Email: [email protected]
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