Footnotes

'EIN STUCK WEISEN COELESTIN AUS SICILIEN': Goethe sends a sample of white celestine crystal to his friend Professor Döbereiner.

Our letter is part of a large correspondence between Goethe and his lifelong friend, the chemist Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner (1780-1849), who became professor at the University of Jena in 1810, a position procured for him by Goethe, his patron. Döbereiner is best known for his work on chemical elements and for inventing the first mass produced pneumatic lighter (known as Döbereiner's Lamp). Goethe, who had a particular interest in chemistry, attended his weekly lectures and used his theories of chemical affinities as a basis for his 1809 novella Elective Affinities. In 1816 Goethe wrote a poem in honour of Döbereiner's 36th birthday on 13 December, which was performed at a torchlit procession by his students. They shared a keen interest in geology - through his role as Minister for Mining and Road Construction, a position he held since 1775, Goethe acquired an extensive knowledge of rocks and minerals and by his death had amassed a large and significant collection of around 23,000 specimens.

A handwritten label affixed to the accompanying folder states that this letter is in the hand of Friedrich Theodor Kräuter (1790-1856), an employee of the Weimar library, who acted as Goethe's private secretary from 1811. He became his library secretary 1816, whereupon he embarked on the cataloguing of Goethe's extensive private library. Our letter was published in Julius Schiff, Briefwechsel Zwischen Goethe und Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner, Weimar, 1914, p.53, no.59.

Provenance: According to an old label in German affixed to the accompanying folder, purchased 6 February 1888 from Antiques Albert Cohn by Jeanette Frankel; given by her to the anonymous writer of the provenance label by 8 January 1923; discovered in the collection of Hedi Stadlen (1916-2004, Austrian Jewish philosopher, political activist and musicologist, daughter of Hans Simon (nephew of Johann Strauss II and Else Reis); thence by descent to the present owner.