Single long lady’s glove, 19th/20th c.

Single long lady’s glove, right, elbow length, end of 19th /beginning of 20th century, I-Naples? NL-Leiden, National Museum of Natural History, new Naturalis Biodiversity Center (MS Inventory 27).

Label: ”J. Semmelink, 21 XII 1910 Mediterranean Sea. Pinna nobilis. With glove as made in Napels from the byssus”.

Sea silk, plain right knit, with three parallel patterned stripes on the back of the hand to the base of the fingers, serrated edge, lenght 35 cm, width at elbow 9.5 cm. Slightly damaged.

The predecessors of the Naturalis were the Reichsmuseum für Naturgeschichte and the Reichsmuseum für Geologie und Mineralogie. The Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie was established by royal decree in 1820. Already existing collections were brought together. The public had very limited access to this museum, and in some periods none. The first director was Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778-1858), ornithologist, who appointed in 1821 Heinrich Boie, Herpetologist (1794-1827) as curator. Boie’s father, Heinrich Christian Boie, was editor of the journal Deutsches Museum and 1789-1791 of the continuation of this series, the Neues Deutsches Museum, where Herder, Goethe and Klopstock published. Boie had also introduced Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg to Goethe.