EIMMART Georg Christoph
(Regensburg 1638 – Nuremberg 1704)
German engraver, astronomer and mathematician, son of Georg Christoph ‘the Elder’, engraver and painter of landscapes, portraits and historical subjects. Since 1655, the young Eimmart has attended the University of Jena. Here he studied mainly mathematics under Erhard Weigel, with whom he maintained a long friendship. At the end of 1658 he returned to Regensburg. After his father’s death he followed his sister Regina Christina in Nuremberg. In this town he worked for a long time being a pupil of Joachim Von Sandrart (painter and art historian in the mid-seventeenth century).
In 1674 he was appointed director of the Nuremberg Painting Academy, a title he held until shortly before his death. The money he earned with his artistic activity, especially as an engraver, served him to open up in 1678 an astronomical observatory at the Nuremberg Castle, the most important of all Germany at the end of the 17th century.
A skilled engraver, together with his daughter Maria Clara, produced remarkable prints of celestial planispheres and constellations. He also engraved works of reproduction with subjects of ancient ruins, buildings, vases and ornaments with figures. Famous is the series of engravings of horses parades performed in honor of the Swedish King Charles XI.
The lunar crater Eimmart is so named in his memory.