Prinz von Maximilian Wied

Born in Neuwied in 1782, Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied was a German explorer, ethnologist, and naturalist. After military service in Prussia, he turned to scientific travel and became known for careful, wide-ranging observation in the spirit of the great nineteenth-century exploration tradition.

His first major expedition took him to Brazil from 1815 to 1817, where he studied plants, animals, and Indigenous communities. Later, from 1832 to 1834, he traveled in North America and recorded invaluable firsthand observations of Plains peoples, especially along the Missouri River.

He is also remembered for working with the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, whose images accompanied his North American journey and helped preserve a vivid visual record of the period. He died in 1867, leaving a body of travel writing and scientific observation that still matters to historians, anthropologists, and readers drawn to early exploration.