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Plate 5 of Caterpillars vol 1, depicting the metamorphosis of the garden tiger moth, its plant host, and parasitic wasps. [Source – Wikipedia]
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Little Maria loved drawing. Drawing something beautiful, beautiful like an insect, a small being living in a jar, brimming with life, ready to burst, ready, delicate wings, ready to fly, fly-fly-fly, finding that plant, that flower, that fruit, which becomes its new home, where it rests and lay eggs for the cycle to continue blooming, for life to rise in a tiny form, a beautiful form, in sync with the movement, the grand movement, grand yet subtle, that speaks with the sun, the stars, the galaxies, all light and bright, such colours in the dark, brimming with life, bursting, moving in waves, gently touching all life, gently letting the wind lift the tiny insect which flies looking for that plant, that flower, that fruit, which becomes its new home.
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Title page of The Caterpillars’ Marvellous Transformation and Strange Floral Food, first volume, published 1679 – Wikipedia Plate I of Caterpillars vol 1, entitled “Maulbeerbaum samt Frucht”. It depicts the fruit and leave of a mulberry tree and the eggs and larvae of the silkworm moth. – Wikipedia Plate showing the stages of the Cocytius antaeus from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. – Wikipedia Coloured copper engraving from Metamorphosis, “Spiders, ants and hummingbird on a branch of a guava”. The spider in the bottom left corner is eating a bird. – Wikipedia Plate 1 of Metamorphosis, showing a pineapple and cockroaches. – Wikipedia Plate 8 of Caterpillars, first volume. Depicting a dandelion Taraxacum, with Dicallomera fascelina, the dark tussock moth. The Dutch common name for the moth Meriansborstel is named for Merian. – Wikipedia Illuminated Copper engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XXII. – Wikipedia Duroia sp. and assorted insects – Wikipedia Illuminated Copper engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate IX. Maria Sibylla Merian, 1705 – Wikipedia Illuminated Copper-engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate VI. 1705) – Wikipedia From Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XIII. (Spondias purpurea) – Wikipedia Illuminated Copper-engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XLVIII. 1705 – Wikipedia Illuminated Copper-engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XXVII. Musa paradisiaca, 1705 – Wikipedia Illuminated copper engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XLV. 1705 – Wikipedia
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Maria Sibylla Merian was a German entomologist, naturalist and scientific illustrator whose work led to the advance of entomology in 17th and 18th centuries. Her first book of natural illustrations was published in 1675. In 1679, she published a two-volume series on caterpillars and in 1705, she published Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (“The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname”).
Arguably the most important work of her career, it included some 60 engravings illustrating the different stages of development that she had observed in Suriname’s insects. Similar to her caterpillar book, Metamorphosis depicted the insects on and around their host plants and included text describing each stage of development. The book was one of the first illustrated accounts of the natural history of Suriname. – Britannica
Her detailed work contributed in understanding the life cycles of an insect, dispelling the two millennia old scientific theory of ‘spontaneous generation’ according to which insects were thought to be ‘born of mud’, that living creatures could arise from non-living matter.
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Watch this short video now to know more about the awesome Maria Sybilla Merian and her work –
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