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Life
Maria Clara Eimmart was a German Astronomer born in 1676. She was the daughter of painter, engraver, and amateur astronomer Georg Christoph Eimmart, the younger. Her grandfather, Georg Christoph Eimmart the elder, was also an engraver and painter. Eimmart the elder painted portraits, still-life, landscapes, and historical subjects. In 1678, Maria Clara Eimmart’s father built a private observatory in Nuremburg on the city wall. From 1699 to 1704, Georg Christoph Eimmart was the director of the Nuremburg Academy of Art, the Malerakademie. Through her father, Maria Clara Eimmart received an education in French, Latin, Mathematics and drawing. She became her father’s apprentice and learned the art of astronomy from him. Eimmart’s skills as an engraver allowed her to assist her father in his work. Eimmart’s skill in creating exact sketches led to her success in both astronomical and botanical illustration. In addition to Eimmart’s depictions of the sun and moon, she also illustrated flowers, birds, ancient statues, and ancient women, but all of these have been lost. In 1706, Eimmart married Johann Heinrich Muller, her father’s pupil and successor. Muller taught physics at the Nuremburg Gymnasium. Eimmart assisted her husband; their marriage successfully secured Eimmart’s position at the observatory. Muller became the director of the Eimmart observatory in 1705. Muller also benefited from the marriage. Because of the principle of daughter’s rights, the Eimmart’s observatory was part of Maria’s inheritance, which then passed from daughter to husband. Maria Clara Eimmart died in childbirth in 1707.

Astronomical Illustrations
Eimmart is best known for her exact astronomical illustrations. Between 1693 and 1698, Eimmart made over 250 drawings of the phases of the moon. This collection of drawings, drawn solely form observations through a telescope was called Micrographia stellarum phases lunae ultra 300 and was depicted on a distinctive blue paper. Eimmart’s continuous series of depictions became the base for a new lunar map.

In 1706, Eimmart also illustrated two depictions of the total eclipse. Some sources claim Eimmart published a work under her father’s name in 1701, the Ichnographia nova contemplationum de sole. However, there is no evidence to support that this was her work and not her father’s.