Featured on PDR in the collection Festooned: Martin Gerlach’s Decorative Groupings (1897)

A prolific engraver and photographer, Martin Gerlach (1846–1918) made his name by founding an eponymous publishing company in Berlin. After relocating to Vienna, he launched a series of children’s books, Jugendbücherei, which featured illustrations by Carl Otto Czeschka, Gustav Klimt, Franz Wacik, and other artists, many in vogue or soon to be. Eventually starting the Polygraphic Art Institute with Ferdinand Shenk, Gerlach passed on his business and artistic legacy to his son, also named Martin Gerlach (1879–1944), who adopted a surrealist approach to photography. Below you will find a set of images from one of the lesser-known works by Gerlach (senior), Festons und Decorative Gruppen aus Pflanzen und Thieren (Festoons and Decorative Groups of Plants and Animals), originally published in 1893. It is a quintessential…