Art Institute of Chicago

African Aloe, plate 47 from Phtanthoza Iconographia

Published by Johann Wilhelm Weinmann

Date

1736

Medium

Color mezzotint and engraving on cream laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

The botanist Johann Wilhelm Weinmann employed several German artists to provide unsigned color illustrations for his massive study of the iconography of plants. The artists mentioned on the title page included Bartholmaus Seuter (1678–1754), Johann Elias Ridinger (1698–1767) and Johann Jacob Haid (1704–1767). The mixed technique of mezzotint and engraving in multiple colors had never before been used for botanical publications, and so preceded Jacques Gautier D’Agoty’s 1767 attempt, the Collection of Usual, Curious and Foreign Plants , as well as Robert John Thornton’s more graphically successful 1799 Temple of Flora .

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