Georg Wolfgang Knorr (1705 - 1761)

Georg Wolfgang Knorr

Georg Wolfgang Knorr was a German engraver, naturalist, and one of the first paleontologists of the 18th century.

Knorr was first apprenticed to his father as a lathe operator, and at the age of eighteen became a copper engraver for Leongard Blank, working with Martin Tiroff on the illustrations for Jacob Scheuchzer's Physica Sacra (1731). This work and his acquaintance with J.A. Beurer, a mineralogist and correspondent of the Royal Society, awakened Knorr's interest in natural history.

In the 1750s Knorr began publishing his own sumptuous folios. One of the most beautiful books of the eighteenth century is devoted to sea shells.