Jean-Christophe Heyland aka Jean-Christophe Kumpfler (1791

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

– 29 August 1866

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian ce ...

), was a Swiss engraver, watercolourist, and illustrator, who produced the plates for many botanical works such as the 1825-27 ''Plantes Rares du Jardin de Geneve'' by

Augustin Pyramus de Candolle Augustin Pyramus (or Pyrame) de Candolle (, , ; 4 February 17789 September 1841) was a Swiss botanist. René Louiche Desfontaines launched de Candolle's botanical career by recommending him at a herbarium. Within a couple of years de Candol ...

. He lived in Geneva from 1803, and produced all illustrations for botanical memoirs published by Geneva botanists after 1820. He also illustrated the work of

Benjamin Delessert Jules Paul Benjamin Delessert (14 February 1773 – 1 March 1847) was a French banker and natural history, naturalist. He was an honorary member of the Académie des Sciences and many species were named from his natural history collections. Biog ...

Philip Barker-Webb Philip Barker Webb (10 July 1793 – 31 August 1854) was an English botanist. Life Webb was born to a wealthy, aristocratic family; his father was the lord of the manors of Witley and Milford, Surrey, Milford, in Surrey, England. Webb was e ...

Giuseppe Giacinto Moris Giuseppe Giacinto Moris (25 April 1796, Orbassano – 18 April 1869, Turin) was an Italian botanist known for investigations of flora native to Sardinia. He studied medicine in Turin, from where he graduated while still in his teens. From 1822 ...

Pierre Edmond Boissier Pierre Edmond Boissier (25 May 1810 Geneva – 25 September 1885 Valeyres-sous-Rances) was a Swiss prominent botanist, explorer and mathematician. He was the son of Jacques Boissier (1784-1857) and Caroline Butini (1786-1836), daughter of Pierre ...

and others.

Biography

Baptised Jean-Christophe Kumpfler, he went to

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

in his youth as an apprentice hairdresser to an uncle named Heyland, whose surname he subsequently adopted. He showed a keen interest in the graphic arts, and employed his leisure time in studying drawing and engraving. After spending a few years in London, where he was a designer of costumes for the theatre, he returned and settled in

José Mariano Mociño José Mariano Mociño Suárez Lozano (24 September 1757 – 12 June 1820), or simply José Mariano Mociño, was a naturalist from New Spain. After having studied philosophy and medicine, he conducted early research on the botany, geology, and an ...

and

Martín de Sessé Martin may refer to: Places * Martin City (disambiguation) * Martin County (disambiguation) * Martin Township (disambiguation) Antarctica * Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land * Port Martin, Adelie Land * Point Martin, South Orkney Islands Austr ...

worked on a ''Flora Mexicana'' and after de Sessé's death in 1808, Mociño met de Candolle in 1816 in

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...

and showed him the drawings they had produced for the planned work. De Candolle requested that the plates be copied by artists of the Geneva community. Of these copied plates, the sixteen done by Heyland caught de Candolle's eye. Guided by de Candolle he became one of the leading botanical artists of the period, working for him for 24 years. One of his students was

Jean-Louis Berlandier Jean-Louis Berlandier (1803 – 1851) was a French-Mexican naturalist, physician, and anthropologist. Early life Berlandier was born in Geneva, and later trained as a botanist there. During this time he probably served an apprenticeship to a ph ...

who also showed great aptitude in his botanical illustrations. Becoming a citizen of Geneva in 1819, Heyland was admitted to the Society of Arts and the Swiss Society of Natural Sciences. The Archduke Reynier, Viceroy of Lombardy, commissioned him in 1849 to work at the botanical garden in

Monza Monza (, ; lmo, label=Lombard language, Lombard, Monça, locally ; lat, Modoetia) is a city and ''comune'' on the River Lambro, a tributary of the Po River, Po in the Lombardy region of Italy, about north-northeast of Milan. It is the capit ...

. In 1859 he returned to Geneva, where he lived on the proceeds from the lessons he gave in drawing. From 1835 he worked as principal artist on

Charles Antoine Lemaire Charles Antoine Lemaire (1 November 1800, in Paris – 22 June 1871, in Paris), was a French botanist and botanical author, noted for his publications on Cactaceae. Education Born the son of Antoine Charles Lemaire and Marie Jeanne Davio, he ha ...

's ''Jardin Fleuriste''. He drew and engraved 5 full-page illustrations, including '' Impatiens parviflora'' for de Candolle's ''Quatrieme Notice sur Les Plantes Rares''. Between 1839 and 1846 he produced the illustrations for volumes 4-5 o
''Icones selectae plantarum''
another of de Candolle's projects in collaboration with Benjamin Delessert (1773-1847). He carried out several commissions for the Geneva Botanical Garden, and directed the engraving and printing in colour of the 180 plates used for 'Voyage botanique en Espagne'. In his old age he suffered from trembling hands and failing eyesight, but retained his good humour to the end. His final contribution to botanical art was the 122 plates he produced for Pierre Edmond Boissier's 1866 work, "Icones Euphorbiarum". Augustin Pyramus de Candolle created the genus ''Heylandia'' in 1825 in his honour, a genus which is now included in ''

Crotalaria ''Crotalaria'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae (subfamily Faboideae) commonly known as rattlepods. The genus includes over 700 species of herbaceous plants and shrubs. Africa is the continent with the majority of ''Crotalar ...

''. Heyland died on 29 August 1866 at a village near Genoa, during a trip in Italy. He had married Louise Françoise Jouvet and had two sons, Jeanne Marie (1826) and Jacques François, both born in Geneva. Jaques François Kumpfler (''alias'' Francesco Heyland), born in Geneva on 26 August 1830, became a daguerreotypist and photographer active in Milan (Italy), initially with his father ("Heyland et fils" = "Heyland e figlio"), then in association with the French photographers Hippolyte and Victor Deroche (in the firm "Deroche & Heyland - Photographie Parisienne, al grand Mercurio"), and finally he worked on his own ("Francesco Heyland"). In 1877, Boissier & Reuter named an

Iris Iris most often refers to: *Iris (anatomy), part of the eye *Iris (mythology), a Greek goddess * ''Iris'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants * Iris (color), an ambiguous color term Iris or IRIS may also refer to: Arts and media Fictional ent ...

after him '' Iris heylandiana'' in the

Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society The ''Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society'' is a scientific journal publishing original papers relating to the taxonomy of all plant groups and fungi, including anatomy, biosystematics, cytology, ecology, ethnobotany, electron microscopy, mo ...

(J. Linn. Soc. Bot.) Vol.16 on page 142.

References

Bibliography

* The complete biographies of Jean-Christophe Kumpfler (Heyland) and of his son Jean François have been published on the book b
Roberto Caccialanza, ''DEROCHE & HEYLAND. Origini e storie dei celebri fotografi: curiosità, notizie e immagini inedite''
Fantigrafica (Cremona, Italy), 2019, pp. 21–27.

External links

Heyland illustrations at plantillustrations.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Heyland, Jean-Christophe Swiss illustrators 1791 births 1866 deaths Botanical illustrators Artists from Geneva