In this book the delicate, quietly haunting illustrations of Martin Gerlach are gathered; images born in the art-and-craft spirit of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where plants, decorative motifs, and subtle figure drawings merge into a world of silent refinement. Gerlach’s work inhabits a space between aesthetic exactitude and poetic stylisation; each plate is a moment frozen in the interplay of line and shade, of nature observed and nature re-imagined.

Martin Gerlach (born Hanau, March 13, 1846 - died Vienna, April 9, 1918) was a German-Austrian engraver, metal-worker, photographer and publisher. Trained in Hanau as a chaser and engraver, he founded his own publishing firm in Berlin in 1872, focusing on books of design, ornamentation and botanical motif reference works. 

Later relocating to Vienna, he built a publishing house allied with the Secession movement and Jugendstil aesthetics, producing influential portfolios such as Allegorien und Embleme which brought together emerging artists like Gustav Klimt and Carl Otto Czeschka. His legacy stands at the intersection of fine craft, photography and decorative modernism.