Prechtl, Joh[ann] Jos[eph]. Anleitung zur zweckmäßigsten Einrichtung der Apparate zur Beleuchtung mit Steinkohlen-Gas.

Vienna, Carl Gerold, 1817.

Large 8vo. XIV, 138 pp. With 2 folding lithographed plates. Contemporary marbled boards with giltstamped label to spine.

 750.00

First edition of the first German monograph on gas lighting; preceded only by Lampadius's translation of Accum's "Practical Treatise on Gaslight". J. J. Prechtl (1778-1854) initiated the foundation of the Vienna Polytechnical Institute in 1815, the first educational institute of its kind in the German-speaking countries, and served as its first director. The institute became a decisive force in the industrialization of Austria. In the autumn of 1815, Prechtl and the engineering professor Johann Arzberger developed a lighting apparatus based on coal gas, thus becoming a pioneer of continental gas lighting. He introduced the system at his Polytechnical Institute in 1817.

The plates are lithographed by the trained engraver Ignaz Kühn, later to become director of the Vienna Lithographic Institute (cf. Schwarz, 43); in 1817, when Senefelder left Vienna, he became Friedrich Kunike's principal assistant (cf. Thieme/B. XXII, 58). He took his life in 1822.

One corner slightly bumped; otherwise a good, clean copy.

References

Poggendorff II, 519. Feldhaus 357. Ferchl 423. Engelmann (Bibl. mech.-tech.) 291. Not in Winkler.

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