Jean Emile Humbert

Jean Emile Humbert (23 July 1771 in The Hague – 20 February 1839 in Livorno) was a Dutch lieutenant-colonel who can be credited with rediscovering ancient Carthage.

[1] As an agent for the Dutch government he procured vital parts of the collection of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden.

His brother David Pierre Giottino Humbert de Superville was a well-known artist and scholar.

During these years the new harbour for Tunis was built, and when the commanding officer of the project left the country for good, Humbert took charge.

He started collecting antiquities, and began compiling notes about the history, customs and language of Tunisia.

Reuvens would prove to be enthusiastic about Humbert's knowledge of ancient Carthage, and welcomed the collection of antiquities.

Humbert was asked to conduct excavations at Carthage, buy antiquities unearthed at nearby Utica, collect Punic material and work on plans, drawings and sketches.

After securing a positive relationship with the ruler in Tunis, Humbert set his mind on the purchase of nine sculptures discovered at Utica.

Unfortunately a top piece in the group was sold and shipped to Denmark, but Humbert managed to procure the other eight statues.

[3] Upon returning to the Netherlands late 1824, Humbert delivered sixty-five crates full of art and artifacts.

Combining that argument with the raging anti-Christian sentiments among the Tunisians, Humbert persuaded Reuvens to allow him a delay of four months.

Humbert had numerous compelling arguments and even proposed to ship the urns back to Italy for a public debate.

The relationship between Reuvens and Humbert was considerably cooler for a while as a result of this incident, though eventually their friendship returned.

Reuvens was interested in the Corazzi collection, because the study of the relatively unknown Etruscans could push Italian history back considerably.

The requested price for the collection had dropped from 60.000 guilders to 38.000, but this was still a huge amount of money and Etruscan antiquities lay outside the scope of the expedition which was supposed to be in Tunisia.

The decision to buy or not was left to the Dutch government, where discussion and correspondence took place between the king, various ministers and professor Reuvens.

Financial difficulties in the Corazzi family led to the collection being offered for 5.000 guilders less, and Humbert boldly sealed the deal without permission to buy.

Humbert around this time also bought a smaller collection of Roman, Egyptian and Punic antiquities, and shipped everything to the Netherlands.

The other buyer could not assemble the money in time though, and Humbert managed to buy the collection for a mere 5.000 guilders.

The Dutch opening bids of 50.000 guilders and then 70.000 were angrily rejected, and a representative was sent to the Netherlands to speak with Reuvens.

It would be yet another offer rejected out of hand, although by this time the asking price had been lowered to 300.000 francs and some objects were added to the collection.

It is a mystery why, but Anasty accepted the offer and after a year of intense negotiations the collection was in the hands of the Dutch government.

Humbert returned to the Netherlands and began working on a publication about Carthage, trying to decipher the notes of the deceased Borgia.