Naturselbstdruck (nature printing)

nature printing, book plate

This is a page from the rare book Physiotypia plantarum austriacarum with nature self-prints of the k.k.. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei in Vienna.
Since 1830, dried plants were printed in lead plates and used as printing forms. By applying different colors to one printing plate, it was possible to create particularly lifelike images. From an aesthetic and scientific point of view, they were far superior to early photographs. The production of metallic printing plates based on real plant prints was consistently developed further in the following years and perfected by Alois Auer Ritter von Welsbach (1813-1869), director of the Vienna State Printing Office. Auer produced an elevated plate from the lead impression by galvanic means. By galvanizing again, he then produced a printable copper gravure plate. The printing process itself hardly differs from that of a copperplate engraving. In 1852, Auer's printer Andreas Worring registered the process as a patent at the Imperial and Royal Privilege Archives. Privilege Archives for a patent.
Auer and Worring achieved great renown with this invention. Their intention was to create artistic-scientific objects while largely reducing the problems of producing herbaria and other natural history works. In April 1856, the Staatsdruckerei began the largest and most prominent Austrian natural self-printing enterprise in history with the publication of Physiotypia Plantarum Austriacarum by Ettingshausen and Pokorny, with the intention of examining all "plant species of the vaterland flora in relation to the nervation of the leaves and leaf-like organs, using natural self-printing."
(Christoph Fuchs)