Curt Netto

He was one of the co-founders of the German Society of Natural History and Ethnology of Asia (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Natur- und Völkerkunde Ostasiens).

However, soon after his return, he was forced to sell much of his large collection of Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints as he lost all of his savings in a bank failure.

[1] After briefly working in Paris, Netto obtained a job with Krupp from 1887–1889, where he invented a new patented process to produce aluminium by the sodium reduction of cryolite.

The revolutionary new process promised to drastically reduce production costs for aluminium, which until that point had been valued more highly than gold due to its scarcity and difficulty to produce.

[4] In 1889, on the recommendation of noted chemist Clemens Winkler, Netto accepted a post as head of the technical department of Metallgesellschaft in Frankfurt am Main.