The Geologist with the Camera – Moritz Blumenthal

In 1872, a museum opened in Chur of a kind that would be hard to imagine nowadays. The "Bündner Museum für Wissenschaft und Kultur" [Graubündner Museum for Science and Culture] housed historical and natural history artefacts, as well as numerous works of art and books. The museum was soon bursting at the seams – or rather at the confines of the Haus Buol, today's Raetian Museum.

Despite the relocation of some of its holdings – including to the Villa Planta, which today houses the historical section of the Bündner Kunstmuseum [Art Museum] – the lack of space for the natural history collection persisted for almost a century. In 1967, however, a geologist from Graubünden left a legacy in his will for the construction of a new natural history museum. This new building – the Bündner Naturmuseum – was opened in 1981. However, who was this geologist?

Moritz Blumenthal was born in 1886 in Chur, attended the Cantonal School [gymnasium in Chur], studied geology in Vienna and Zurich, then travelled the world – including as a petroleum geologist in the service of today's Shell company. In all his endeavours, he always had his camera with him. Almost 4800 of Blumenthal's pictures – on the one hand photographs of geologically interesting sites, on the other photographs of towns, cities, people or buildings – can be found today in the Staatsarchiv Graubünden – including in digital form.