Click here to see Johann Wilhelm Weinmann's work

Johann Wilhelm Weinmann, pharmacist and botanist, was born on March 13, 1683 at Gardelegen, Germany, the son of a barber, Matthias Christian Weinmann. Little is known about his early life, but he settled in Regensburg in 1710 as a pharmacist’s assistant in a local apothecary shop.

He later made the claim that he had worked with physicians and apothecaries in many German towns and that all of them would give favorable testimonials in his behalf. What is certain is that Weinmann’s fortunes developed rapidly in Regensburg. In 1712, he was able, with his fiancée, to purchase a house and apothecary shop; his bride, Isabella Catharina Fürst, was the daughter of a well-to-do wine merchant. In 1732, two years after the death of his first wife, Weinmann married Christine Catharina Pfaffenreuther, the daughter of a town official, and was able to purchase a bankrupt pharmacy business which he soon built up into a thriving concern.

Weinmann’s major creation was Phytanthoza iconographia (1737-1745), a great project which comprised eight folio volumes with over a thousand hand-colored engravings of several thousand plants. The first artist employed by Weinmann was none other than Georg Dionysius Ehret (1708-1770) who would become one of the foremost floral illustrators of the eighteenth century. When he was introduced to Weinmann in 1728, he had no employment and was so poor that he had not been able to pay his river passage from Ulm to Regensburg, but had worked it off by taking turns at the oars. When Weinmann saw examples of Ehret’s work, he hired him to draw a thousand illustrations in a year’s time for which he would be paid fifty thaler. He was also given room and board and lived in the Weinmann house with the apothecary apprentices. At the end of a year, the artist had completed half of the assignment, and Weinmann, claiming that the contract was unfulfilled, gave him twenty thaler and sent him on his way. Several years later, Ehret brought a suit against his former employer in order to obtain compensation, but Weinmann claimed that Ehret had deserted him, and the suit failed. In spite of these early difficulties, the latter’s career was filled with success stories on the Continent and in England where he had many wealthy patrons. Phytanthoza iconographia was published in both Latin and German editions, and a Dutch edition appeared in four volumes in 1736-1748. This edition was brought to Japan in the early nineteenth century, and some of the Weinmann illustrations were the source for those in Honzô zufu, the monumental Japanese botanical work by Iwasaki Tsunemasa (1786-1842). This book, which describes and illustrates 2000 plants, is said to be one of the two most important treatises on systematic botany in the Tokugawa period (1603-1867).

Weinmann’s great work has been described in various ways, not all of them complimentary. It is acknowledged that Phytanthoza was impressive for its size and scope, but criticisms were made concerning some of the plant specimens displayed.

Biography text from MBG Rare Books Library.