Portrait of Maria Sibylla Merian by Jacob Marrel in 1679 - Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland
Maria Sibylla Merian (April 2, 1647 – January 13, 1717) was a German entomologist, naturalist and scientific illustrator.
She was one of the earliest European naturalists to document observations about insects directly.
Merian was a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Merian family.
She received her artistic training from her stepfather, Jacob Marrel, a student of the still life painter Georg Flegel.
Maria Merian published her first book of natural illustrations in 1675.
She had started to collect insects as an adolescent.
At age 13, Maria raised silkworms.
In 1679, Merian published the first volume of a two-volume series on caterpillars.
The second volume followed in 1683.
Each volume contained 50 plates that she engraved and etched.
Merian documented evidence on the process of metamorphosis and the plant hosts of 186 European insect species.
Along with the illustrations she included descriptions of their life cycles.
In 1699, Maria Merian travelled to Dutch Guiana to study and record the tropical insects native to the region.
In 1705, she published Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.
Merian's book Metamorphosis has been credited with influencing a range of naturalist illustrators.
Because of her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, Merian is considered by David Attenborough to be among the more significant contributors to the field of entomology.
She discovered many new facts about insect life through her studies.
Until Maria Merian's careful, detailed work, it had been thought that insects were "born of mud" by spontaneous generation.
Her pioneering research in illustrating and describing the various stages of development, from egg to larva to pupa and finally to adult, dispelled the notion of spontaneous generation and established the idea that insects undergo distinct and predictable life cycles.
The Background Story:
Title page of The Caterpillars' Marvellous Transformation and Strange Floral Food - first volume published in 1679
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.
Plate 5 of Caterpillars vol 1, depicting the metamorphosis of the garden tiger moth, its plant host, and parasitic wasps.
Plate showing the stages of the Cocytius antaeus from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium.
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.
Plate 1 of Metamorphosis, showing a pineapple and cockroaches.
An occupational portrait of Maria Sibylla Merian (c. 1700) - Copperplate by Jacobus Houbraken from a portrait by Georg Gsell. Her status as a scientist is emphasised by the pile of books next to her. The globe and the prints draw attention to her accomplishments. The pair of engraving burins and the emblem of her father emphasize her ancestry.
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