Alois Auer

Alois Auer Ritter von Welsbach ( born May 11, 1813 in Wels, Austria above the Enns, when Alois Auer, † July 10, 1869 in Hietzing in Vienna ) was an Austrian printer, inventor and botanical illustrator. He was especially active in the 40s and 50s of the 19th century. He wrote, among numerous other works on German and other languages, the first about the nature print. He was director of the Austrian State Printing House, which produced illustrated volumes of scientific interest.

Life and work

Alois Auer comes from the Rafter family Matthias Auer and Maria Anna, nee Mayr. In October 1849 he married in Wels Therese, daughter of the merchant Neuditschka. They were the parents of Alois jun. and Carl (1858-1929), later the Austrian chemist, inventor and entrepreneur, and daughters and Leopoldine Amalie. 1860, the Auer family Ritter von Welsbach in the peerage, 1901 son Carl was raised to Baron.

Auer's early career began with teaching in Italian, and he acquired increasing language skills on his travels through Germany, France and England. He turned to the acquired in his study of typography art knowledge, when he was director of the printing house of the Viennese court was 1841. The products developed by him jewelry types allowed greater flexibility, and the company was very successful due to the ability to represent 500 European dialects (without Russian, Turkish and Hebrew) and nearly 150 languages ​​around the world.

The first published work on nature print was the discovery of the nature print process. In this he described in detail the use of plant material, stone and fabric, which was pressed into lead, or rubber, to demonstrate what he saw as a major advance in the production of botanical plants. His intention was to create " artistic- scientific objects" and thereby greatly reduce the problems in the production of herbaria and other natural history works. Another Illustrator, Henry Bradbury, began in similar production processes to work, after he had seen Auer invention.

His interest in science and languages ​​proposed in both publications down that contained his works about the numerous printing methods, as itself also in the exceptional success of the State Printing Apart from the volumes and panels which were executed by the nature print process, he also published some of the first books with photographic proportions. The publication microphotograph said to have been the first.

He invented a " typometrisches " system, which facilitated the use of many foreign alphabets with jewelry types that were used in the print set. This was described in his work The Printing apparatus.

His position as director of the Vienna k and Royal Court and State Printing 1841-1864 brought some progress in the automated high-speed printing, the copper plate printing and typographical new method whereby the printing press was under his leadership to a company of world renown.

He gave lectures on languages ​​, and he later took over the directorship of the Austrian state china factory.

Auer was the first honorary citizen of his home town. In 1856 he was elected a member of the Scholars Academy Leopoldina.