Johann Christian Gerning
Johann Christian Gerning (* 1745 in Frankfurt, † 1802) was a Frankfurt merchant and banker, who collected insects and Franko ford Rhodesia.
Curriculum vitae
Gerning had as many affluent Frankfurt -18th century art and natural history collections. It served not alone the education and edification of entertainment and pleasure, but has also been used specifically to demonstrate the social stakeholders and to improve the social position in the Frankfurt city society. The Gerning family lived first in a generation in Frankfurt. His father Peter Florens Gerning came from Bielefeld and 1732 had the right of citizenship in the imperial city sought after his training in Frankfurt, because he had noticed " how big the difference seye to live under a civil sovereign, and in a Republique ". After his marriage to Anna Elisabetha Schedel 1741, he acquired the house »For large lime rock" in the Schnurgasse (ref. G. No. 73). There was born in 1745 Johann Christian grew up as an only child. In 1764 the father's death in the two appointed guardians sent him to the teaching in Switzerland, which he completed with great reluctance in trading house Gemuseus in Basel and at Morel & Bertrand in Bern. Back in Frankfurt in 1767 he married Mary Magdalene Moors, the daughter of the aldermen and later city mayor Johann Isaac Moors. That same year, the only son of John Isaac was born. The house in the Schnurgasse let Gerning modernize in 1770 after plans by the plasterer Christian Benjamin Rauschner; In 1787 he sold it and moved to the socially more prestigious Roßmarkt, where he "At the Salt House " acquired a building. There he was home at the imperial coronation in 1790 the King of Naples, Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, and his wife Queen Maria Carolina, a daughter of Maria Theresa, and the imperial coronation in 1792 the Prince of Esterházy. Johann Christian Gerning died in 1802 at the age of 57 years on the beat flow.
The insect collection
Johann Christian Gerning amassed a quite typical for the 18th century collection whose focus was kind and Franko ford Rhodesia. Even as a young Gerning had begun under the guidance of the Frankfurter clerk Johann Nikolaus grains to collect butterflies; were added later beetles and spiders and birds. Thanks a spread correspondence with collectors and researchers throughout Europe succeeded Gerning - with the active support of his son - an insect collection of about 50,000 copies in 88 boxes to collect; among them there were also butterflies from the collection of Maria Sibylla Merian. Of course Gerning also possessed an extensive specialist scientific library, which allowed him to taxonometrische organization of the collection according to the various classes. Collection and library enabled him to significantly contribute to a significant entomological publication, supported by the French tax farmers and collectors Gigot d' Orcy » Papillons d'Europe ," which appeared in Paris from 1779 to 1793 in eight volumes. The Frankfurt artist Maria Eleonora Hochecker provided numerous drawings from specimens from the collection Gerning'schen for the copper plates, which they also colored.
The Franko ford Sien Collection
After his return from training in Switzerland Gerning not only took his insektenkundliche collecting to again, he began in 1770 and Franko ford Rhodesia in the form of drawings, engravings, books, coins and medals to collect. Compiled Had the citizens of Frankfurt in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially written documents on the history of the city, so Gerning was apparently the first collector who systematically and pictorial evidence amassed, which form an important source of historical research today. Presumably he also commissioned artists such as Johann Caspar Zehender and Johann Jakob Koller with the production of vistas and architectural surveys. The topographical views, architectural and event representations as well as portraits arranged Gerning in several adhesive volumes for which he was designing of Zehender Koller and title pages.
The fate of the collections
After the death of Johann Christian's collection in 1802 passed to his son Johann Isaac of Gerning, who - mixed with his own collections - in the next 30 years peu à peu sold, gave away, and exchanged. Only a part of the collections can be still detected. In 1804 he gave four adhesive volumes of Frankfurt Sien - collection and a painting of Jacob Marrel to the Frankfurt City Library, which referred her in 1878 to the newly founded historical museum frankfurt. His art and antiquity collections, and parts of his library he left in 1824 for a life annuity the Nassau Association for Ancient Studies (now the Museum Wiesbaden and Nassau State Library ); the insect collection was in 1830 at the Nassau Association for Natural History in Wiesbaden (now Museum Wiesbaden).