This unique document is a masterpiece because of its importance for the history of the museum as its establishing document and a testimony of the great importance which the famous scientist, Philipp Franz von Siebold, exercised on the cultural and scientific life of his time.

History of the Object

Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796 – 1866) to König Ludwig I. (1825 – 1848); 1835 In 1835 the well known medical doctor and scientist, Philipp Franz von Siebold, who was famous for his stay in Japan, wrote a letter to the Bavarian King Ludwig I, in which he developed the plan for the establishment of an ethnographic museum in Munich. Most of this draft appears to be modern up to our times. The Bavarian king was not only interested in European art, but also in Non-European objects of ethnographic and artistic value and showed them also in exhibitions. However, the proposed museum of Ethnography was not founded during his time. It was finally opened in 1868 by King Ludwig II (1864 – 1886), the grandson of King Ludwig I. von Siebold may be taken as the true founder of the State Museum of Ethnology Munich.