Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs

Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs was a German chemist and mineralogist and a royal Bavarian privy councillor, born in 1774 at Mattenzell in the Bavarian Forest. In 1807 he became professor of chemistry and mineralogy at the university then located in Landshut, in 1823 conservator of the mineralogical collections at Munich, and in 1826 professor of mineralogy when the university moved there. He retired in 1852, was ennobled in 1854 and died in Munich in 1856. He is known for mineralogical observations and for his work on waterglass, sodium silicate, which he used to develop stereochromy, a kind of fresco painting with pigments fixed by waterglass. He also devised a scientific method for making cement and contributed to the understanding of the amorphous state of solids, and he coined the mineral names wagnerite and margarite.