Provenance, Science & Profit: Natural History Museums and the Global Network of the Umlauff Natural History Trading Houses

Natural history traders have been crucial, yet under-researched contributors to museum collections. The Hamburg-based J.F.G. Umlauff family company, founded in the mid-19 th century, exemplifies this significance. For nearly 100 years, members of the Umlauff family supplied zoological and ethnographic specimens to museums all over the world. During a two-day workshop, an interdisciplinary group of museum practitioners, archivists, as well as scholars from the fields of History and Cultural Studies, mapped Umlauff's impact on natural history collections, particularly in German museums, by reconstructing their global trading networks. Research questions include identifying beneficiary institutions nationally and internationally and tracing interdisciplinary procurement practices, especially for collections from colonial contexts.