The monument is made of Carrara marble on a granite pedestal. It shows a larger than life Justus von Liebig sitting with a book in his right hand and legs crossed. The sculpture was started by sculptor Michael Wagmüller and completed in 1883, after his death, by Wilhelm von Rümann. On the sides of the pedestal there are two reliefs: one represents a Greek philosopher with corn on his lap, teaching a boy - this symbolizes Liebig as a teacher and reformer of agriculture and the other relief shows a woman sitting with a book and two putti, one with a distillation piston on a tubular furnace (probably a Liebig condenser).
From Wikipedia: "Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a German chemist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and was considered the founder of organic chemistry. As a professor at the University of Giessen, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the greatest chemistry teachers of all time. He has been described as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his emphasis on nitrogen and trace minerals as essential plant nutrients, and his formulation of the Law of the Minimum which described how plant growth relied on the scarcest nutrient resource, rather than the total amount of resources available. He also developed a manufacturing process for beef extracts, and founded a company, Liebig Extract of Meat Company, that later trademarked the Oxo brand beef bouillon cube. He popularized an earlier invention for condensing vapors, which came to be known as the Liebig Condenser."
Major works
Liebig founded the journal Annalen der Chemie, which he edited from 1832. Originally titled Annalen der Pharmacie, it became Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie to more accurately reflect its content. It became the leading journal of Chemistry, and still exists. The volumes from his lifetime are often referenced just as Liebigs Annalen; and following his death the title was officially changed to Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie.
Liebig published widely in Liebigs Annalen and elsewhere, in newspapers as well as journals. Most of his books were published concurrently in both German and English, and many were translated into other languages as well. Some of his most influential titles include:
Ueber das Studium der Naturwissenschaften und über den Zustand der Chemie in Preußen (1840) Digital edition by the University and State Library Düsseldorf
Die organische Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agricultur und Physiologie; in English, Organic Chemistry in its Application to Agriculture and Physiology (1840)
Chimie organique appliquée à la physiologie animale et à la pathologie; in English, Animal chemistry, or, Organic chemistry in its applications to physiology and pathology (1842)
Familiar letters on chemistry and its relation to commerce, physiology and agriculture (1843)
Chemische Briefe (1844) Digital edition (1865) by the University and State Library Düsseldorf
In addition to books and articles, he wrote thousands of letters, most of them to other scientists.
Liebig also played a direct role in the German publication of John Stuart Mill's Logic. Through Liebig's close friendship with the Vieweg family publishing house, he arranged for his former student Jacob Schiel (1813–1889) to translate Mill's important work for German publication. Liebig liked Mill's Logic in part because it promoted science as a means to social and political progress, but also because Mill featured several examples of Liebig's research as an ideal for the scientific method. In this way, he sought to reform politics in the German states. (
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