Subiaco Museum > Records

DRAWING: 'IN ICE AT CUXHAVEN' OTTO LIPFERT

1893
Overview

Front: Sketch by Otto Lipfert of a steamboat with smoke billowing from its funnel. Masts and spars fore and aft. Sketch in pencil and titled "In ice at Cuxhaven. January (18)93". (Cuxhaven is on the coast at Wilhelmshaven, the nearest port to Hamburg, Germany).
Inside: Inside the double fold in a song from the American Civil War. On the back, in German, is a German poem or song on leaving the Fatherland by sea.

Historical information

Items 90.205-8 are a series of pencil sketches done by Otto Lipfert in 1893. "In ice at Cuxhaven" was sketched on his departure for Australia. A German poem about leaving the Fatherland by sea in handwritten on the back. The Lipfert family home was at 270 York Street, Subiaco. Miss Gertrude Lipfert lived in the family home at 270 York Street, Subiaco until her death in 1989. Daughter of Otto Lipfert, taxidermist at WA Museum. Otto Lipfert was born in Germany in 1864 .. He trained and worked there as a furrier, but he developed a keen interest in nature and the animal species that were exciting Europeans in Australia. On hearing there was no taxidermist in Western Australia he migrated in 1892, making the voyage in a British ship so that he could learn English on the way.
In 1894 he became the first taxidermist to work for the Western Australian Museum. He made his first collecting trip—to the Abrolhos Islands—that spring.
Lipfert was naturalised in 1900. In 1902 he married German-born Anna Struck at the German club in Perth. The couple built a house at 270 York St (formerly Gibney Street), Subiaco, where members of the Lipfert family lived until 1989. Three daughters: Gertrude, Minna (died in 1959) and Elsa. Otto died in Perth in 1942. Anna died in 1967. (90.203)

Details

Details

Registration number
cwa-org-43-1990.205
Item type
Material
Width
152 mm
Height or length
125 mm
Inscriptions and markings

Otto Lipfert

Year
Statement of significance

Otto Lipfert migrated from Germany to Australia, in 1893

Subiaco Museum

Subiaco Museum

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