In addition to his official occupations as state council secretary for the Archduchy of Lower Austria and later as the state council minute taker for the imperial-royal Landrechte of Lower Austria under the Austrian Empire, the Austrian scholar Karl von Meidinger (1750-1820) researched and published works on diverse areas of natural science. Among more than 60 articles of primarily practice-related physical, chemical, mercantile and botanical content, there is also the Icones Piscium Austriae, published at his own expense between 1785 and 1794, in which 42 species of fish and a number of varieties from the Donau drainage basin, in Austria, are reproduced on 50 handcolored folio copper plates, compiled in five leaflets. The small print run, high selling price, and the sparse Latin text, unfortunately, prevented a wide circulation of this now essentially forgotten work.
