This is one of my favorite types of botanical art, it’s called “Naturselbstdruck” which means “Nature Self-Printing” which used actual specimens to create high-fidelity plates used for printing in numbers. Plates 1-7 are by Ludwig Heufler (1855) and photos 8-16 are by Alois Auer (1853)

Naturselbstdruck (nature self-printing) is the process

of using an actual specimen, like foliage or a wing, to create a permanent, high-fidelity printing matrix.

While centuries of simple manual "leaf-stamping"

preceded it, the technique became a scientific

powerhouse in the 1850s through a sophisticated

intaglio method.

Alois Auer (Vienna): In 1853, as director of the

Imperial and Roval State Printing House, Auer

perfected the industrial application. He used extreme

pressure to embed a specimen into a soft lead plate

then electrotyped it with copper. This allowed for the

mass production of incredible detailed botanical

plates that were essentially "photographic" in their

accuracy.

Henry Bradbury (London): Bradbury studied under

Auer and brought the technology to England. He

refined the process to achieve unprecedented color

fidelity and texture, most notably in his masterpiece,

The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland (1855)

By capturing the physical topography of a specimen

these prints provided a level of objective,

unmediated data that traditional hand-drawn

illustrations could not match.