ABSTRACT
In this paper the author explores the practice of one museum science, in an international context, by taking a specific example from the early years of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. His example is Georges Cuvier, and specifically the research that culminated in 1812 in the four volumes of his great Researches on fossil bones. When Cuvier arrived in Paris in 1795, and got himself appointed suppleant to Mertrud at the Museum, he brought some internationalism with him. Soon after Cuvier joined the Museum, his unplanned excursion into fossil anatomy, which in the event delayed his Animal kingdom until after Fossil Bones was completed, was precipitated by two events that brought him crucial specimens from outside France. Drawings were the main currency of international exchange in Cuvier's research on fossil vertebrates. Often they were simply sketches in pencil or ink, but they were usually drawn with impressive accuracy and shaded with considerable skill.
