Portret van Johann Friedrich Blumenbach 1804

This print, made by Johann Daniel Laurenz in the late 18th or early 19th century, depicts Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, a highly influential German physiologist and anthropologist. Blumenbach was a professor at the University of Göttingen, a recently founded institution that was at the forefront of the Enlightenment. This portrait presents Blumenbach as a respectable intellectual, his status indicated by his formal attire and the inscription of his titles. However, Blumenbach's legacy is complex. While he advocated for scientific inquiry, his work also contributed to the development of racial classifications that were used to justify social and political inequalities. The presence of Blumenbach's collection in the Natur u Kunst Museum mentioned in the inscription also speaks to the history of museums as institutions that can both preserve and perpetuate problematic ideologies. By consulting archives, university records, and publications from the period, historians can offer a more nuanced understanding of Blumenbach and his place in the history of science.