The collection of autographs has grown out of the collection of about 2000 letters of the Cologne banker's daughter and wife Sibylle Mertens-Schaaffhausen (1797-1857), who was associated with Bonn and who for decades moved in the Biedermeier Rhenish and Roman literary and art-loving world. 1849 bequeathed to the Bonn University Library by will, the collection has belonged to the collection since 1859. The original collection also contained foreign correspondence, e.g. letters from the estate of Sibylle's Weimar friend Adele Schopenhauer, whose adopted home was the Rhineland and who died in Bonn in 1849; the collection's holdings were almost doubled in 1895/96 due to the estate of the Bonn bookseller Gustav Marcus (1897 figures: 3928 copies of 2509 persons, 310 portraits).;The foundation of the Geh. Kommerzienrat Emil vom Rath, established in 1910, expressly served the care of Rhenish literature. Not only could manuscripts be acquired from their funds in 1911, but the former Mertens-Schaaffhausen autograph collection could also be expanded into a Rhenish autograph and portrait collection. The collection also grew considerably (by at least 841 pieces) in the years 1919 - 1922, when 184 "well-known personalities of the Rhine Province" responded to a request from the library and donated portrait photographs and autographs (often with self-biographical content) to the collection. Larger autograph complexes held together by writers or addressees, which were acquired in no small number in the following period, were generally not classified in the autograph collection, but as collections, partial bequests or splinter bequests in the group of S-signatures containing manuscripts of all kinds. In 1935 7057 autographs were counted, in the year 2007 the collection contained 7953 autographs; in addition further single autographs, which were not separated from the book because of the direct connection, are found as supplements in books. The location of these autographs results from the signature.

Scope: 3.00 cm. Includes: Albertuswerke, Chemische Fabrik/Maschinenfabrik, Hanover Purchase of floor care products, 1939; Auslandsbrief-Prüfstelle Köln-Riehl Bank transfer of prey mail (Reisewerk von Le Vaillant) to the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, 1941; Auslands-Zeitungshandel G.m.b.H., Cologne Purchase of foreign newspapers and magazines, 1944; Bauer, H.W., 1940 - 1942 Letterhead: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, Hauptdienststelle München Ankauf der Zeitschrift "Deutscher Kolonial-Dienst", 1940; Discussion of ethnological problems; Behrens, Josef Potsdam Ankauf von optische zeichengerät, Prospekt, 1938; Benzinger, Theodor, Stuttgart Ankauf von Fotoalben über außereuropäische Völker, 1941; Berthold, Karl Borromäus, Köln (Meisterschule des Deutschen Handwerks) Congratulation on Bs. 50. birthday 21.12.1939; C

Contains:Overview of letters from scholars and friends to Theodor Bilharz and the ArchivAlfons Bilharz (with indication of signatures);Excerpt from the catalogue of Theodor Bilharz's skull collection (the collection kept at the University of Freiburg was destroyed in World War II);Recipe cover of the Bilharz pharmacy in Sigmaringen with short biography of Theodor Bilharz;Erich Ebstein: Bürgers Gedichte in der Musik. - In: Zeitschrift für Bücherfreunde 7 (1903/1904), p.177-198; From Elise Bürger's letters. (With dedications by Ebstein for Bertha Bilharz);Aus der Geisteswelt (Booklet, 1903);Up the Nile [probably: Up the Nile: a photographic excursion, Egypt 1839 - 1898, ed. by Deborah Bull and Donald Lorimer, New York 1979;Werner P. Heyd: Sum ergo cogito - In memory of Alphons Bilharz on the 50th anniversary of his death. - In: Hohenzollerische Heimat 25 (1975), p.33-37;Hans Schadewaldt: Theodor Bilharz. - In: German medical weekly 80 (1955), p.1053-1055;Hans Schadewaldt: Theodor Bilharz. Doctor and naturalist in Cairo. - In: Lebensbilder aus Schwaben und Franken 7 (1960), p.337-345.Provenance: NL Theodor and Alfons Bilharz.Index:Skull Collection; Ebstein, Erich; Bilharz, Bertha; Bilharz Pharmacy; Egypt; Heyd, Werner P.; Schadewaldt, Hans.Accession: 30/2001.Processed by: Bü.Erfassung am: 15.02.2006.