Johan Wilhelm Weinmann (1683-1741) German, Set of 4 Copperplate Engravings. Images originally published in the 18th Century. Hand-colored and illustrated botanical images. Tags with previous gallery information on back of two of them. 

Overall: 24 X 18 1/2 in. 

Sight: 13 X 8 1/2 in. 

#3909 . 

Johann Wilhelm Weinmann was born on March 13th, 1683 in Gardelegen, Germany. What is known of his early life is that he settled in Regensburg, or Ratisbon as it was known in 1710, and found work as the assistant of an apothecary. Weinmann was prosperous enough to be able to afford to purchase a house and apothecary shop of his own just two years later. However, this led to him becoming embroiled in a drawn-out dispute with local apothecaries and physicians, brought about by his appointment in 1713 as Hospital Apothecary. The dispute was only resolved in 1715 with the intervention of the Town Council, who officially absolved him of any wrongdoing. He created a botanical garden in Regensburg, published the Catalogus Alphabetico Ordine Exhibens Pharmaca in 1721, and contributed botanical notes as “Observationes und Anmerkungen” in the Breslauer Sammlungen the following year. Weinmann went on to become a town councilor in 1723, a commercial assessor in 1725, and a city assessor in 1733. His first wife, Isabella Catharina Fürst, was the daughter of an affluent wine merchant who died in 1730. In 1732 he remarried to Christine Catharina Pfaffenreuther, daughter of a leading town official. A year later he bought out another apothecary shop which had gone bankrupt and within a year it was turning a profit. His business interests flourished so much that he was finally able to completely indulge his one passion: botany. He is most famous for his creation of the Florilegium Phytanthoza Iconographia between 1737 and 1745, an ambitious project which resulted in eight folio volumes with more than 1,000 hand-colored engravings of several thousand plants. The work is thought to have inspired similar works, such as the Japanese medicinal work “Honzo Zufu” (1828) by Iwasaki Tsunemasa and “Somoku-dzusetsu” (1856) by Yokusai Iinuma. Weinmann employed the youthful Georg Dionysius Ehret as illustrator, who used a newly developed printing process involving mezzotint that allowed greater detail and shading, and was finished by hand-coloring. The publisher Seuter and Ridinger turned out the first three volumes, while Johann Jakob Haid managed the later volumes. After the first 500 plates Ehret left the project to find better pay as a painter and plate copier for other companies. Johann Georg Nicolaus Dieterichs (1681-1737) wrote the botanical text for the first twenty-five plates, and was succeeded by his son Ludwig Michael Dieterichs (1716-1747). The work was completed after Weinmann’s death in 1741 by Ambrosius Karl Bieler (1693-1747). Phytanthoza Iconographia is highly regarded to this day for the quality of its color plates, and the accuracy of its images compared with previous attempts at cataloging herbs and plants. Weinmann’s prints are so popular that they continue to appear as decorations today in parts of Northern Europe.