The Imperial Natural History Museum or Imperial Royal Natural History Court Museum of Austria-Hungary was created by (Kaiser) Emperor Franz Joseph I during an extensive reorganization of the museum collections, from 1851–1876, and opened to the public on August 10, 1889. Located in Vienna, the Museum was named in German as "K.k. Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum" (with "Hofmuseum" translated as "Court Museum").
Later, the Museum became part of the Natural History Museum of Vienna, Austria (in German, "Naturhistorisches Museum Wien" or NHM-Wien).
When officially begun in 1876, Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829–1884) became the first superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum, after having been, from 1860, professor of mineralogy and geology at the Imperial-Royal Polytechnic Institute in Vienna. In 1886, Austrian geologist and paleontologist Franz Ritter von Hauer became second superintendent of the Imperial Natural History Museum (more at "History" below).
The main building for the Museum was constructed between 1871-1891.
See more about the current museum at: Naturhistorisches Museum.
Read more about Imperial Natural History Museum: History
Famous quotes containing the words imperial, natural, history and/or museum:
“All the terrors of the French Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the morals, manners, and name of that interest, saying, that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free- masonry. M. de Narbonne, in less than a fortnight, penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“One can think of life after the fish is in the canoe.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 23, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)