Background
He was the son of François-Charles Oberthür.
He was the son of François-Charles Oberthür.
Oberthür named 42 new genera of moths. Oberthur acquired the collections of Jean Baptiste Boisduval (1799–1879), Achille Guénée (1809–1880), Jean-Baptiste Eugène Bellier de la Chavignerie (1819–1888), Adolphe de Graslin (1802–1882), Constant Bar (1817–1884), Emmanuel Martin (1827– 1897), Antoine Barthélemy Jean Guillemot and Henry Walter Bates (1825–1892). His immense collection, at the end of his life, contained 5 million specimens in 15,000 glass topped boxes of 50 x 39 cm.
In 1916, it was the second largest private collection in world.