Christian Gottfried Heinrich Geißler (1770 - 1844)

Christian Gottfried Heinrich Geißler

Christian Gottfried Heinrich Geißler was a German draughtsman, printmaker and illustrator.

After studying at the Leipzig Art Academy, Geißler went to St. Petersburg in 1790 and worked there as an art teacher. In 1793-1794 Geißler took part in an expedition to southern Russia organized by Catherine II, under the direction of Peter Simon Pallas, as a painter and engraver, during which he depicted various costumes of the local inhabitants. After his return to Leipzig in 1798, these documentary sketches formed the basis of illustrations for Pallas's travel notes and popular science books on the manners and customs of the Russian tribes, which he published with Johann Gottfried Gruber and Johann Gottfried Richter.

Geißler was also the author of the engravings of the famous album "Depiction of the uniforms of the Russian Imperial Army" (St. Petersburg, 1793). In Leipzig, Geißler illustrated children's books and also kept an illustrated chronicle of the French occupation between 1806 and 1813.