Wikipedia

Alexander Clavel

Alexander Clavel (17 December 1805 – 22 February 1873), also recorded as Alexander Clavel-Oswald and Alexander Clavel-Linder in 19th-century Basel sources,[1] was a French-born Swiss textile industrialist and silk dyer who, in 1859, began producing the synthetic dye fuchsine in Basel. In 1873 he sold his works to Bindschedler & Busch, the predecessor of the Gesellschaft für Chemische Industrie in Basel [Society for the Chemical Industry in Basel] (Ciba).[2][3] His early adoption of synthetic dyes and his move to the Basel-Klybeck district were pivotal in Basel's emergence as a European center of the dye and chemical industries.[4]

Alexander Clavel
Alexander Clavel, c. 1860 (Novartis Company Archive)
Born(1805-12-17)17 December 1805
Lyon, France
Died22 February 1873(1873-02-22) (aged 67)
Basel, Switzerland
Occupation(s)Industrialist, silk dyer, chemical entrepreneur
Known forFounder of the dye works that became Ciba (later Ciba-Geigy and Novartis)
SpouseHenriette Linder
ChildrenAlexander Clavel-Merian (1847–1910)
Portrait of Alexander Clavel-Merian (1847–1910), son of the founder (Basel University Library).

Early life and family

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Clavel[a] was born in Lyon in 1805 and trained as a silk dyer.

Career

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He settled in Basel in 1838 and married Henriette Linder, widow of silk dyer Karl Theodor Oswald, taking over the Oswald dye works at the Bläsihof in Kleinbasel.[4] Through business and family links with Lyon dyers, he followed developments in coal-tar dye chemistry emerging from France and Britain.[2]

In 1859, Clavel began manufacturing fuchsine (also marketed as magenta or aniline red) for the silk ribbon trade in Basel, one of the earliest such ventures in Switzerland.[2][4][7][8] Fuchsine belongs to the triarylmethane class; in 19th-century trade literature it was often called aniline red, but that term was used loosely for related red aniline dyes and is not chemically precise.[9][10] Modern historical reviews distinguish fuchsine/magenta from looser uses of aniline red.[11][12]

Complaints about fumes from arsenic-based processes led Basel authorities to restrict aniline-red production; in 1864 Clavel moved the works to the Klybeckstrasse on the Rhine, creating a "Laboratorium für Fabrikation von Anilin- und anderen Farben" [Laboratory for the production of aniline and other dyes].[4] The move marked a shift of colour chemistry to Basel's outskirts and foreshadowed the city's industrial expansion.[2][13]

In 1873, weeks before his death, his dye plant was sold to the chemist Robert Bindschedler and the businessman Albert Busch (Bindschedler & Busch), whose partnership was reorganized in 1884 as the Gesellschaft für Chemische Industrie in Basel (Ciba).[3][14][15]

Personal life

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Clavel became a naturalized citizen of Basel in 1849.[4] He and his wife Henriette Linder had one son, Alexander Clavel-Merian (1847–1910), who continued the family business; the later industrialists Alexander Clavel-Respinger (1881–1973) and René Clavel (1886–1969) were his grandsons.[16][17][18]

Death and legacy

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Clavel died in Basel on 22 February 1873.[4]

Clavel's enterprise established the lineage that grew into Ciba-Geigy and later Novartis.[3] Basel's chemical-industrial surge was driven by such early dye makers and the relocation to Klybeck.[2][19]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Contemporary Basel sources and later authority files record variants of his name such as Alexander Clavel-Oswald and Alexander Clavel-Linder. The hyphenated forms reflect the Swiss Allianzname [Alliance name] custom, common in the 19th century and still practiced today, by which a married person, sometimes even the husband, may append the surname of the spouse or, in Clavel's case, of his wife's late husband whose business he inherited. The practice has long been socially accepted in Switzerland but has never been part of the official civil name.[5][6]

References

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  1. ^ "Clavel, Alexander". Deutsche Biographie [German Biography]. Retrieved 26 October 2025.
  2. ^ a b c d e Lorenz Stucki (18 October 1968). "Das heimliche Imperium (III): Chemiker kamen über die Grenze [The secret empire (III): Chemists came across the border]". Die Zeit (in German). Retrieved 25 October 2025.
  3. ^ a b c Novartis (history entry). SAGE. 2009. Retrieved 25 October 2025. By 1873, he sold his dye factory to Bindschedler and Busch; in 1884 the company became Ciba.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Schmidlin, Antonia (14 December 2023). "Clavel, Alexander". Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (in German). Retrieved 25 October 2025.
  5. ^ "Alexander Clavel – GND 108046221X". Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (in German). Retrieved 26 October 2025. Andere Namen: Clavel-Oswald, Alexander; Clavel-Linder, Alexander; Clavel Merian, Alexander.
  6. ^ "Allianzname (customary law double name)". Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP), Switzerland. 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2025. Under Swiss customary law, the "Allianzname" allows a person to append the spouse's surname (e.g. Meier-Huber). This usage has existed since the 19th century and remains socially common today for both men and women, although it is not an official civil name.
  7. ^ "Company history". Novartis United Kingdom. Retrieved 25 October 2025. In 1859, Alexander Clavel (1805–1873) takes up the production of fuchsine.
  8. ^ "Historia de la compañía [Company history]". Novartis España (in Spanish). Retrieved 25 October 2025. En 1859, Alexander Clavel ... inicia la producción de fucsina ... en su fábrica de tintes de seda de Basilea.
  9. ^ Cooksey, C., Dronsfield, A. (2015). "Quirks of dye nomenclature. 4. Fuchsine: four shades of meaning". Biotechnic & Histochemistry. 90 (2): 81–82. doi:10.3109/10520295.2014.989543. Retrieved 25 October 2025.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  10. ^ Quye, Anita; Scholler, Eve-Anne; Wieber, Sabine (2014). Identifying Fuchsine Visually in Dress and Textile Collections (Report). University of Glasgow. pp. 2–4. Retrieved 25 October 2025.{{cite report}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  11. ^ C. Cooksey, A. Dronsfield (2009). "Fuchsine or magenta: the second most famous aniline dye". Biotech Histochem. 84 (4): 179–183. doi:10.1080/10520290903081401. PMID 19557559. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
  12. ^ Chris Cooksey, Alan Dronsfield (1 January 2010). "The battle for magenta". Education in Chemistry (Royal Society of Chemistry). Retrieved 25 October 2025.
  13. ^ Michael Mildner. "The Rise and Fall of Dye Chemistry at Klybeck". Novartis Live Magazine. Retrieved 25 October 2025. Alexander Clavel had laid the foundation for these successes in 1864 with the first dye factory in Klybeck.
  14. ^ Degen, Bernard (30 March 2021). "Ciba". Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (in German). Retrieved 26 October 2025.
  15. ^ "Ecstasy of Colors: Basel's Chemical Revolution". Novartis Live Magazine. 2021. Retrieved 25 October 2025. In 1873, he sold his factory ... thus, in 1884, the Gesellschaft für Chemische Industrie Basel (CIBA) was founded.
  16. ^ Kaufmann, Gerhard (2017). "Alexander Clavel und der Wenkenhof [Alexander Clavel and the Wenkenhof]" (PDF). Jahrbuch z'Rieche (in German): 57–84. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
  17. ^ "The Wenkenhof and the English Park in Riehen". The Swiss Spectator. 2 September 2025. Retrieved 25 October 2025. In 1917, the industrialist Alexander Clavel-Respinger (1881–1973) bought the estate. His brother was René Clavel (1886–1969).
  18. ^ "ReCONNECT: Kunst und Archiv – Wer war René Clavel?". Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt (blog) (in German). 11 July 2022. Retrieved 25 October 2025. ... Sohn des Seidenfärbers Alexander Clavel-Merian (1847–1910) ...
  19. ^ Fagin, Dan (22 March 2013). "Dye Me a River: How a Revolutionary Textile Coloring Changed History". Scientific American. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
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