Ferdinand Vietz Icones Plantarum 1800-1822

We are delighted to present a selection of these exceedingly rare & beautiful original hand colored copper engravings from the monumental Icones plantarum medico-oeconomico-technologicarum, published in Vienna from 1800 to 1822. Ferdinand Bernhard Vietz (1772-1815) was the artist and engraver. In its entirety, this work consists of 11 volumes with 1100 botanical plates.

It was published at a time when Germany was transitioning from the overblown & elaborate Rococo style to the classic & elegant Biedermeier period. Under the neo-classical influence, design became simpler and more sophisticated. The style of Vietz is unique, in that it is a distillation of the work of many great botanical illustrators such as Blackwell, Weinman, Zorn & Woodville into a form that is superbly beautiful, with some of the most highly decorative engravings of all time. Vietz was an Austrian physician and Doctor of Medicine in Vienna & later on a Professor of forensic medicine at Vienna.

This monumental work is one of the rarest of all such publications, the British Natural History Museum writes of its own copy:

“Today, the work appears to be of extreme rarity, 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.”