Federico Schulz and his girl.

Albumen -measures: 13 x 9.5 cm / 5.11 x 3.74 in- with small losses in two of its angles, mounted on a paper of its time, and on this a handwritten legend in iron gall ink: Sr. Fed(co) Schultz. Preparador taxidermista en el Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Buenos Aires hacia el año 1860; y en la formación del Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Córdoba”. The image was reproduced in "The National Academy of Sciences in the 19th century" (Luis Tognetti. Córdoba. 2004)

Federico Schulz in 1864 would have come to Buenos Aires from Berlin, hired by Hermann Burmeister to work in the Public Museum of the University of Buenos Aires, "he did it as a hunter, with accessory functions of assembling large objects and accompanying the director on his travels" However, it is said that suffering a complex relationship with its director, he was laid off in 1869. (1) The truth is that at the end of 1876 he moved to Córdoba where he was incorporated into the Zoological Museum that depended on the University, in the function of preparer-conservator. It is known that in those years Hendrik Weyenbergh -who organized the Museum as a professor of Zoology at that house of higher studies- praised its dedication and quality of work, demanding a higher salary: “not only has he been working every ordinary day but also in holidays", and for a "meager salary of $ 40 per month" fulfilling four tasks, "of preparer, hunter, conservator and custodian”. (2)

In 1879 Schulz was part of the Expedition to the Desert commanded by General Julio A. Roca and in 1885 he accompanied Florentino Ameghino in the Scientific Commission that explored the National Territory of the Chaco. (3)

Notes:

1. José H. Laza: History of paleontological techniques and their development in Argentina. Buenos Aires, Maimónides University - Vázquez Mazzini Editores - Azara Natural History Foundation, 2019, p. 124.

2. Luis E. Acosta: History of Zoology at the University of Córdoba: the first years (1872 - 1916). In Journal of the Faculty of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, vol. 2, N ° 1, March 2015, p. 81.

3. Irina Podgorny: Mentiras de Perogrullo. Las expediciones al Chaco de Leopoldo Arnaud y de Eduardo L. Holmberg (Argentina, 1884-1885). In "Approaches to the local and the global: Latin America in the History of Contemporary Science". Mexico. 2016.