Albertus Seba

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Albertus Seba (May 12 1665, Etzel near Friedeburg - May 2 1736, Amsterdam) was a Dutch pharmacist and zoologist.

Born in East-Frisia, Seba moved to Amsterdam as an apprentice and opened around 1700 a pharmacy near the harbour. Sailors and ship surgeons were asked to bring plants and animal products he could use for preparing drugs. Seba also started to collect in his house. From 1711 he delivered drugs to the Russian court and became quite rich. Besides in 1715 Seba sold part of his collection to Peter the Great, from 1728 exposed in the Kunstkammer in Saint Petersburg. Also Frederik Ruysch, another townsman, sold his collection to the czar. In 1735 Linnaeus visited him twice.

In 1734 Seba published a Thesaurus of animal specimens with beautiful engravings. The last two of the four volumes were published after his death. The full name of the Thesaurus is, with a dual Latin–Dutch title, Locupletissimi rerum naturalium thesauri accurata descriptio — Naaukeurige beschryving van het schatryke kabinet der voornaamste seldzaamheden der natuur (Accurate description of the very rich thesaurus of the principal and rarest natural objects).

Today, the original 446-plate volume is on permanent exhibit at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, Netherlands. Recently, a complete example of the Thesaurus sold for US $460,000 at an auction. In 2001, Taschen Books published a reprint of the Thesaurus.