Walther Müller (1845 to 1927) was a lithographer and botanical artist in Gera, Germany. He made the original drawings for the 88 color plates in the first volume of Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen, published in 1887.
His work
Müller drew plants for books from the publisher Fr. Eugen Köhler in Gera. He also ran his own lithographic printing firm in Gera, and its name appears on some of the plates it printed. Besides the medicinal plants, he made the drawings for the plates of Otto Wilhelm Thomé’s Flora von Deutschland, a guide to the plants of Germany, Austria and Switzerland that began in 1886. Both books use chromolithographs, color prints made from stone. In Köhler’s book, some plate descriptions end with the note “Nach der Natur von W. Müller,” German for “from nature, by W. Müller.”
Walther or Walter
His name appears in 2 spellings, even in books from the same years. Thomé’s first volume of 1886 credits “Walter Müller in Gera,” and Köhler’s volume of 1887 credits “Walther Müller in Gera.” Some sources confuse him with Walther Otto Müller (1833 to 1887), a botanist who also lived in Gera.
Müller in our collection
Our botanical art collection has 5 pieces from his plates in volume 1: the Lemon (plate 3), Dandelion (plate 5), Common Oak (plate 30), Grapevine (plate 51) and Lavender (plate 60). The book’s description of our Dandelion plate ends with his “from nature” note.
