Frederick Schoenfeld ( 1810 - 1868)

Schoenfeld arrived in Melbourne on board the Scottish Chief in May 1858, ) and sought work as an artist, lithographer and drawing master. He joined a community of accomplished German-speaking artists and scientists who settled in Melbourne in the 1850s, encouraged to emigrate by opportunities the young colony’s gold rush-fuelled growth presented. Schoenfeld’s major Australian achievement was the numerous finely detailed botanical illustrations commissioned by Ferdinand Von Mueller for his landmark publications. These have been acclaimed as being among the most accomplished botanical lithographs produced anywhere in the world during that period.

Schoenfeld’s commissions for McCoy were published posthumously in both the Prodromus of the Zoology of Victoria and the Prodromus of Palaeontology of Victoria.