Maria Clara Eimmart (27 May 1676 – 29 October 1707), was a German astronomer, engraver and designer. She was the daughter and assistant of Georg Christoph Eimmart the Younger.
Early life Maria Clara Eimmart was born on 27 May 1676 in Nuremberg to Maria Walther and the artist and astronomer Georg Christoph Eimmart the Younger. She was their only surviving child; an older brother had died in infancy in 1669. When Eimmart was about two years old, her father built an astronomical observatory on the Vestnertor bastion of the Nuremberg city wall, north of Nuremberg Castle. Eimmart was educated by her father, who taught her painting, etching, Latin, French and mathematics. She became interested in astronomy while young and assisted with work at the observatory. A drawing she made of a Vestal Virgin in 1691, when she was about 15, survives in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg. Between 1693 and 1698, she made about 235 drawings of the phases of the Moon.
Marriage and family Eimmart married astronomer Johann Heinrich Müller on 20 January 1706, when she was 29. Müller had been a pupil of her father and succeeded him as director of the Nuremberg observatory. The couple had one child, a son named Michael, who was baptized on 23 July 1707. Michael died at about ten weeks old, in late September or early October.
Paintings and illustrations In 2012 Markus Heinz of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin discovered two paintings by her of a total solar eclipse that was seen in Nuremberg in 1706. These were known to have existed but were also thought lost. These paintings are in excellent agreement with text descriptions of the event and are now of considerable scientific importance, being a unique depiction by a trained astronomer of the solar corona during the Maunder minimum. Eimmart is best known for her exact astronomical illustrations done in pale pastels on dark blue cardboard. Between 1693 and 1698, Eimmart made over 350 drawings of the phases of the moon. This collection of drawings, drawn solely from observations through a telescope, was entitled Micrographia stellarum phases lunae ultra 300. Twelve of these were given to Luigi Ferdinando Marsili, a scientific collaborator of her father's, and ten survive in Bologna, together with three smaller studies on brown paper. Eimmart’s continuous series of depictions became the basis for a new lunar map. In 1706, Eimmart made two illustrations of the total eclipse at Nuremberg. There are also some drawings of planets and comets.
Death Eimmart died in Nuremberg on 28 October 1707, aged 31, about four weeks after the death of her son. Gaab states that she died from a "hectic fever" contracted following childbirth.
Gallery
See also Timeline of women in science
Notes
Literature Hans Gaab: Zum 300. Todestag von Maria Clara Eimmart (1676–1707). In: Regiomontanusbote. 20, 4/2007, S. 7–19. Hans Gaab: Maria Clara Eimmart. Eine Nürnberger Astronomin. In: Nadja Bennewitz, Gaby Franger: Geschichte der Frauen in Mittelfranken. Alltag, Personen und Orte. Ars vivendi, Cadolzburg 2003, S. 145–152. Ronald Stoyan: Die Nürnberger Mondkarten. Teil 1: Die Mondkarte von Georg Christoph Eimmart (1638–1705) und Maria Clara Eimmart (1676–1707). In: Regiomontanusbote. 14, 1/2001, S. 29–39. Karl Christian Bruhns (1877). "Eimmart, Georg Christoph" . Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German). Vol. 5. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. p. 758. Siegmund Günther (1885). "Müller, Johann Heinrich" . Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German). Vol. 22. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. pp. 583–585. Adolf Wißner (1959), "Georg Christoph Eimmart", Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB) (in German) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot) 4: 394–394, (full text online)
External links Astronomical Illustrations by Maria Clara Eimmart Maria Clara Eimmart at Astronomie in Nürnberg Georg Christoph Eimmart at Astronomie in Nürnberg Drawing of a Vestalin by Maria Clara Eimmart Germanischen Nationalmuseum Nürnberg






