ANTIQUE PRINTS
Ferdinand Bernhard VIETZ (Austrian, 1772-1815)
Title: "Anchusa Tinctoria (Dyer's Alkanet)", "Sanguisorba
Officinalis (Great Burnet)", "Napellus (Monkshood)", "Tragopogon
Porrifolium (Purple Goat's Beard)", "Quassia (Bitter-Wood)",
"Aesculus Lutea (Yellow Buckeye)", and "Polygonum Fagopyrum
(Buckwheat)"
Portfolio: Icones Plantarum Medico-Oeconomico-Technologicarum
(Icons of Medical-Economic-Technological Plants)
Year: 1800-1822
Medium: Set of Seven Original Hand-Colored Engravings
Limited edition: Unknown
Sheet size (each): approx. 9" x 7.25"
Image size (each): 7.75" x 6"
Price: SOLD
Ferdinand Bernhard Vietz (18 November 1772 in Vienna - 15 December 1815 in Vienna), was an Austrian pharmacologist, a Doctor of the Healing Arts and Professor
of Forensic Medicine at the University of Vienna, and is best known for "Icones Plantarum Medico-Oeconomico-Technologicarum cum Earum Fructus ususque
Descriptione" (1800-1822), an 11-volume compilation of medicinal, culinary and decorative plant species consulted by pharmacologists during the early 1800s. The
noted cartographic engraver, Ignaz Alberti, worked on the 1100 hand-colored copperplate engravings on laid-watermarked paper and completed the work after the
early death of Vietz. Volumes 1 and 2 were printed in Latin and German in adjacent columns. Volumes 3-10 have the title in German only. Volume 11 is a
supplementary volume by Joseph Lorenz Kendl. In the introduction to Volume 1, Vietz lists a lengthy bibliography of consulted works, an enormous number of
sponsors and a dedication to Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria.
Vietz's monumental work is extremely rare, and the British Natural History Museum writes: The work is “not being held in any other of the United Kingdom's
national or public library collections. Only three copies have been found in North American libraries, of which two are certainly fragile and in need of conservation.
One copy is in the Austrian National Library.”
On his death, Vietz was succeeded by Joseph Bernt (1770-1842), as professor of state medicine.
References:
"Icones Plantarum Medico-Oeconomico-Technologicarum (Icons of Medical-Economic-Technological Plants)", (1800-1822) - "Great Flower Books" - Sitwell & Blunt
page 79, 147; Nissen BBI 2062; Pritzel 9764; Stafleu/Cowan 16153
FINE ART INVESTMENTS SINCE 1978