Crown Prince Rudolf (1858-1889)

Archduke, born on 21 August 1858 in Schloss Laxenburg near Vienna as the son of Emperor Franz Joseph I. Under the influence of his tutor Ferdinand v. Hochstetter, (who later became the first manager of the Imperial Natural History Museum), he became very interested in natural sciences and already had a mineral collection at a very early age. After his inexplicable death on 31 January 1889, large portions of his collection came into the possession of the University for Agriculture in Vienna.