Johann Christoph Volkamer (1644-1720) was the son of Johann Georg Volkamer (1616-1693), physician, botanist, and gardener, who visited Italy and studied at Padua from 1638 to 1641, soon after the establishment of the botanic garden there. When he returned to Nuremberg, he built a large greenhouse in his garden at Gostenhof, the house and garden later inherited by his oldest son, Johann Christoph, who shared his father’s love of both Italy and gardening. During his youth he spent several years in Italy visiting gardens to study the endless varieties of citrus fruit he saw. The first part of the ‘Nurnbergische Hesperides’ was published in 1708 was a great success, the second volume came out in 1714. The fruit and gardens in most of the plates – spherical oranges, lemons, and citrons drifting like eccentric balloons above miniature landscapes – make pleasingly surreal compositions. Its genesis is reflected in two albums of Volkamer’s drawings for it in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg. About two hundred of these drawings have survived, and others were probably destroyed during World War II with parts of the family archive. Dunthorne (1938) 323; Hunt (1958) 420; Nissen BBI (1966) 2076; ‘Oak Spring Pomona’ (1990) pp.191-9. Pritzel (1871-77) 9848-9.