Abstract

This illustration by Heinrich Leutemann, a popular animal painter who also produced drawings for Carl Hagenbeck’s zoo and his so-called Völkerschauen (i.e., human zoos), shows the supposed habits of the Inuit in Greenland, referred to here as “Eskimos.” It is taken from the book Leutemanns Bilder aus dem Völkerleben (published in English in 1888 as Graphic Pictures of Native Life in Distant Lands, Illustrating the Typical Races of Mankind), an ethnographic book of pictures for a younger audience, to which geography professor Alfred Kirchoff contributed the text. Neither Leutemann nor Kirchoff had ever visited the countries or peoples described in the book.

Graphic Pictures of Native Life in Distant Lands (1888)

Source

Source: Leutemann’s Bilder aus dem Völkerleben. Fürth: Löwensohn, 1888, n.p. Reprinted in Eric Ames, Carl Hagenbeck’s Empire of Entertainments. Seattle, London: University of Washington Press, 2008, plate 3.

Eric Ames, Carl Hagenbeck’s Empire of Entertainments. Seattle, London: University of Washington Press, 2008.

Graphic Pictures of Native Life in Distant Lands (1888), published in: German History in Documents and Images, <https://germanhistorydocs.org/en/forging-an-empire-bismarckian-germany-1866-1890/ghdi:image-5112> [April 22, 2024].