Oberthuer, Charles (1845-1924)

Born at Rennes in 1845, Charles Oberthuer was a son of the founder of the celebrated printing firm which bore his name, and of which for many years he was chairman. Previous to the removal of the family from Strasbourg and its establishment in Rennes, it had for generations been intimately concerned in the business of printing. This long association bore fruit in an unexpected direction, for Oberthuer was able to be his own patron, printer and publisher when he decided in 1876 to commence giving to the entomological world that long series of priceless volumes known as the 'Etudes d' Entomologie.' In 1902 he discontinued these, considering he had done his share and that he deserved a rest, and to pass his last years in putting in order the vast collections he had amassed from all parts of the world. But in 1904 we find him saying in the Preface to the first volume of his 'Etudes de Lepidopterologie comparee,' that he could no longer resist his desire to publish again and to keep abreast of events in a modest way. The result - twenty-two volumes with many hundred black-and-white plates and text-figures and nearly six hundred coloured plates, the excellence of which has never been surpassed, seldom even approached, in any other entomological publication. Moreover, the scientific interest of this second series is far greater than that of the first. To him more than to any other we owe our present knowledge of the Lepidoptera of Algeria, Morocco, and Chinese Thibet. The American entomologists will always remember with gratitude the eager response he made to their appeal for coloured figures of Boisduval's types of N. American Rhopalocera. In connection with this proof of the ready and generous help it was ever Oberthuer's delight to give to other entomologists, one may recall his dictum - 'No good figure; no valid name.' He held himself aloof from the post-Darwin trend of evolutionary thought, sticking firmly to the theory of the Creation, and on more than one occasion declared that he had found nothing in his study of entomology inappropriate with his beliefs. He died at Rennes on 1 June 1924.