Cradle of lithography
By chance, Offenbach am Main became the cradle of the oldest planographic printing process. In 1799, on a business trip to Vienna, the Offenbach music publisher and music printer Johann Anton André (1775-1842) read an advertisement in a Munich newspaper in which Alois Senefelder (1771-1834) advertised the new "lithography" process.
A demonstration immediately convinced the businessman: "75 pages in a quarter of an hour, of which two were always printed at the same time" allowed the extremely inexpensive delivery of music for six kreuzer per sheet. Anton André's business trip to Vienna had led to a second, no less momentous result. Johann Anton André bought the composer's handwritten estate from Mozart's wife Constanze, which remained in Offenbach am Main until 1854. Subsequently, lithographed printed music after Mozart's original manuscripts appeared in our city - from 1800 onwards. Senefelder himself had set up the lithographic presses for the André company and trained workers. At the same time, the company set up branches in European countries and sought to protect the new process with privileges. In general, lithography became important for the reproduction of artists' prints.
