Maria Sibylla Merian - BOTANICAL ART & ARTISTS
Maria Sibylla Merian was a woman of both Art and Science.
She was a Botanical & Natural History Illustrator who was the first to record metamorphosis

Introducing Maria Sibylla Merian (1647 - 1717) 
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Portrait of Maria Sibylla Merian - an engraving by Jacobus Houbraken
Portrait of Maria Sibylla Merian - an engraving by Jacobus Houbraken
Maria Sibylla Merian was a Naturalist, an Entomologist and a Botanical Illustrator and is rated as being one of the greatest ever botanical artists.​

She is best known for her illustrations of plants and insects made as a result of her trips to the tropical country of Suriname on the north eastern cost of South America.

This site will be of interest to all botanical and natural history artists and all those who enjoy art which records nature, plants and insect life.

This page provides:
  • an overview of her life and work 
  • a compendium of links to biographies and books about her life and work. 
  • online galleries and exhibitions which display her work. ​

All images sourced from Wikimedia or Wikimedia Commons or my own photographs.
A Parrot Tulip, Auriculas, and Red Currants, with a Magpie Moth, its Caterpillar and Pupa by Maria Sibylla Merian
Subject : A Parrot Tulip, Auriculas, and Red Currants, with a Magpie Moth, its Caterpillar and Pupa By: Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) Black chalk, bodycolour and watercolour on vellum; 31,6 cm x 26 cm Via Wikimedia Commons

Biography of Maria Sibylla Merian 
​April 2, 1647 - January 13, 1717 
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Maria Sibylla Merian was a Swiss naturalist and artist living and working in the seventeenth century. She excelled in both endeavours. 

One of her principal claims to fame is that she is one of the first naturalists to have studied insects. She recorded and illustrated the life cycles of 186 insect species.

Her evidence documented the nature of metamorphosis and contradicted contemporary ideas about how insects developed.

She also discovered unknown animals and insects in the interior of Surinam. Her classification of butterflies and moths is still used today. 

She also undertook scientific expeditions at a time when these were unusual and normally undertaken by men only.  
Duroia eriopila by Merian
Duroia eriopila (from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XLIII)

Merian's Life - a Timeline

April 2, 1647: born Frankfurt, Germany to a family of Swiss heritage. This is a centre for the silk trade - and the silk worm was very important to the town. 

1650: her father, the Swiss engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian the Elder, dies

1651: Her mother remarried. Jacob Marrel, her stepfather is a renowned flower and still life painter and encourages her to paint. Marrel had been taught bytwo notable artists:  Jan i Davidsz de Heem (1606-1684) and Georg Flegel (1563-1638).

1660: Age thirteen she started to collect insects and raised silk worms. She begins to paint images of insects and plants from specimens she had captured. Throughout her life she kept specimens and studied their life cycles.
I spent my time investigating insects. At the beginning, I started with silk worms in my home town of Frankfurt. I realized that other caterpillars produced beautiful butterflies or moths, and that silkworms did the same. This led me to collect all the caterpillars I could find in order to see how they changed.
Maria Sibylla Merian - in the foreward to Metamorphosis
1665: Age 18, she marries one of her stepfather's apprentices, Johann Andreas Graff and became known as Maria Sibylla Graff. Shortly afterwards she gives birth to her first child Johanna Helena. She continued to paint and also taught painting. Her specimens came from gardens.

1670: moves to Nuremberg - her husband's home town - and gives drawing lessons to unmarried daughters of wealthy families - which enabled her to have access to gardens of the city's elite.

In the 1670s, she also works as a flower painter and engraver - and published her engravings. She was apt to add insects to her flower paintings.

1675: Publishes her first collection of engravings - Neues Blumenbuch - New book of flowers  A first edition copy of Blumenback was sold at Christies in 2011 for £565,255. 

1677: Publishes her second collection of engravings and first caterpillar book - Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung  (The Caterpillar, Marvelous Transformation and Strange Floral Food). In this set of engravings she demonstrated the life cycle of the butterfly and how it transforms from a caterpillar to a butterfly. i.e. she demonstrates metamorphosis of the European butterfly.

​The important distinction of Merian's work in relation to insects is she worked from live specimens.

1678: Her second daughter Dorothea Maria is born.

1680: Publishes her third collection of engravings
Picture
The Blumenbuch was issued in 3 parts consisting of 12 plates each in 1675, 1677 and 1680, respectively.
In the introduction Merian states that she has produced the work as a model book, providing patterns to be copied in paint or embroidery. She thus joins a long tradition of florilegia serving this purpose.
MERIAN, Maria Sibylla (1647-1717). Blumenbuch. Nuremberg: Johann Andreas Graff, 1675-1677-1680. | Christies
Picture
Watercolour study of a Rose by Maria Sibylla Merian, Nürnberg 1675 (Bamberg State Library) Source: Wikimedia Commons
1681: Her stepfather and mentor Jacob Marrel dies and Merian leaves her husband and returns to her mother in Frankfurt in order to escape her own unhappy marriage.

1683: Publishes her second book on European butterflies.

1685:  Merian moved to a religious commune, based at Waltha Castle in the Netherlands, which practiced celibacy with her mother and two daughters -  Johanna Helen and Dorothea Maria. 

The Castle was owned by Cornelis van Sommelsdijk, the governor of Surinam. He had an an extensive collection of natural history objects from Surinam. This enabled her to begin her studies of the tropical flora and fauna of Surinam and South America.

1690: Her mother dies at the Castle.

1691: Merian moves to Amsterdam with her two daughters.
Her daughter Johanna Helena subsequently marries  a trader and moves to Surinam - a Dutch colony. (Surinam was colonised by the Dutch in the 17th century and known as Dutch Guiana until 1954)

1692: She is formally divorced from her husband, due to her husband not sharing her faith.
Picture
Maria Sibylla Merian (1679) - Portrait attributed to Jacob Marrel (Courtesy of Kunstmuseum Basel)
1699: The city of Amsterdam sponsors Merian to go on a trip to Surinam with her youngest daughter. Aged 52, she travels around the area now known as French, Dutch and British Guianas for two years. Her work involves sketching the plant life, animals and insects.
1701: Merian returns to Amsterdam due to malaria. She sells the specimens she has collected and begins her preparations to produce and publish a collection of engravings about the life in Surinam.

​Between 1701 and 1705 she makes 60 copperplate engravings to illustrate the stages of insect development, arranged around the cultivated and wild plants she had encountered on her travels.

1705: Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, her illustrated book about the Insects of Surinam is published in Dutch and Latin. With its detailed text and imagery, the Metamorphosis is the first work on the natural history of Surinam.
Picture
Ananas mit Kakerlake (Pineapple with cockroach) by Merian (c. between 1701 and 1705) Hand coloured copper engraving
1715: Merian suffers a stroke after which she is partially paralysed and subsequently becomes a pauper as she is unable to work

January 13, 1717: she dies in Amsterdam. A collection of her work - Erucarum Ortus Alimentum et Paradoxa Metamorphosis - is published posthumously

Latterly her artwork has become extremely popular and is held by many prestigious collections - including the Royal Collection.
Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis 
by Kim Todd
This is a biography which tells the story of a seventeenth century woman who was an explorer, natural scientist and artist who would be regarded as exceptional in any age: 
  • how Merian travelled from Amsterdam to Surinam age 52 with only her daughter for company
  • how her discoveries and insights have incluenced biology today.
BUY THIS BOOK IN UK 
Rated an average of 4.4 out of 5 stars by 59 reviews
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: I.B.Tauris; First Edition edition (30 Mar. 2007)
Reprint: Harvest Books (3 Dec. 2007)

​BUY THIS BOOK IN USA 
Rated an average of 4.4 out of 5 stars by 68 reviews
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (December 3, 2007)

Linnean Society Lecture: A Curious Performance: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Art of Natural History
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Below is the video of the presentation at the Linnean Society - A Curious Performance: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Art of Natural History by Kate Heard, Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings at Royal Collection Trust.

I attended the talk and despite having already put this page together learned a few new things that evening!  It covers her life but also the Merian illustrations which are in the Royal Collection kept at Windsor Castle.

Biographical references
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Before Merian, information on plants was confined to botanical books with no connection to the insects that ate and pollinated them. Books about insects often showed the different life stages on separate pages. Each plant or insect specimen was confined to its own space, interacting with nothing but the eye of the viewer. 

300th anniversary of her death in 2017
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January 13th, 2017 was the 300th anniversary of Maria Sybilla Merian's death.  There were a number of exhibitions in her honour (see below).

The exhibition section below details the exhibitions in Germany which are being held in her honour. To mark the 300th anniversary of the death of Maria Sibylla Merian, Berlin’s Kupferstichkabinett and the Städel Museum present outstanding examples of their collections of German naturalist illustrations of flowers and insects
Among Merian's achievements are the fact that she ran, as far as we know, the only all-female scientific illustration workshop in Europe during her lifetime; that she described the life cycles of nearly 200 species of insects and amphibians; that she used the money she made from her scientific illustration to fund research trips to South America - in an age when science was largely the pursuit of independently wealthy men Merian was (even more!) unusual in that she made her living from science.
Picture
Cashew nut (Anacardium occidentale) from Insects of Surinam
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Cacao (1705) from the Insects of Surinam volume

Google Doodle honours Merian - 2nd April 2013 
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On 2nd April 2013, the Google Search Engine honoured Maria Sybilla Merian with a Google Doodle on the occasion of the 366th anniversary of her birth.

As is characteristic of Google Doodles it creates the letters of Google using imagery associated with the individual. In this instance the Google doodle wove several drawings of butterflies, insects, plants and a lizard together to spell "Google". If you then clicked on the Google Doodle you were taken to a Google search for Maria Sibylla Merian.

Merian on Google Arts and Culture
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There are some Google Arts and Culture sites about Merian. These are

​The Publication of "Insects of Surinam"
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Picture
Illuminated Copper-engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate VI. 1705)
ion Metamorphosis of a Butterfly
Metamorphosis of a Butterfly (1705 - Copper engraving) from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XX.
"Merian’s nature was beautiful, but true-to life. Her blossoms had holes, her leaves were half chewed, and her blooms had lost their petals."
The Woman Who Made Science Beautiful
There are some issues about the scientific validity of the colours used in the publication of later editions of this publication. The concerns relate to how the book was originally published.

The book was first published in 1705. There were different options:
  • text in two languages
  • plates in four different versions - uncolored on paper, hand-colored on paper, and hand-colored counter-proofs on either paper or vellum. 
Subsequently there were further editions - with five being produced in the 18th century. These again had variations in what was on offer.
Consequently today, when reviewing editions of the book, it is essential to know which edition it is as current surviving copies provide evidence of significant divergence in later editions from the original coloring
ONLINE EDITIONS
REFERENCE:
Maria Sibylla Merian: Insects of Surinam by: Katharina Schmidt-Loske
This is the book which generated Merian's reputation.
​It was the first ever work to document the natural history of Suriname and was originally published in 1705 both Dutch and Latin.  The 60 copperplate engravings are designed to show the different stages of insect development. The insects are displayed alongside the the cultivated and wild plants where she found them during her travels in Surinam.

A genuine first edition recently sold at Christies for £145,000

This is a TASCHEN reprint of a hand-colored first edition copy of Merian's pioneering achievement and major work Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. It includes the complete plates and a commentary by Katharina Schmidt-Loske. It's also rather big!
RECOMMENDED - I own this particular edition of this book and it fulfils all of Taschen's normal high standards of quality content and production. 

​I personally find Merian's illustrations of plants and flowers to be absolutely fascinating. She was an entomologist by training, she of course includes all the insects and butterflies as her primary focus - and the plants and flowers are the necessary context for their existence.

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Taschen GmbH; Mul edition (15 Oct. 2009)

Rated an average of:
4.5 out of 5 stars by 18 reviewers in the UK
4.5 out of 5 stars by 19 reviewers in the USA

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The video below is about an ORIGINAL copy of the book.
​The commentary is a mix of Dutch and English and the visual quality is very good.
Picture
Plate 1 from Metamorphosis in Surinam by Maria Sibylla Merian

Other artwork
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While Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium is what Merian is best known for, this is not the only artwork she ever produced!

References to other artwork are few and I'm endeavouring to compile a listing of what is available to view online.  References are usually to auction catalogues

Exhibitions of Maria Sibylla Merian's work
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EXHIBITIONS IN 2017
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2017 was the 300th anniversary of the death of German natural history and botanical artist Maria Sibylla Merian
​- and a number of exhibitions celebrated her.
Maria Sibylla Merian and the Tradition of Flower Illustration
Venue: (Berlin Museum of Prints and Drawings) Kupferstichkabinett Matthäikirchplatz, 10785 Berlin
Dates: 7th April 2017 to 2nd July 2017 

Mara Sibylla Merian and the Tradition of Flower Depiction
Venue: The Städel Museum, Schaumainkai 63, 60596 Frankfurt am Main
Dates: 11th October 2017 - 14th January 2018

​Both the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett and the Städel Museum in Frankfurt had exhibitions of outstanding pieces from their collections of her German natural-historical depictions of flowers and insects.

​​The catalogue of the exhibition is in German
On display are about 150 works on paper and parchment from the 16th to the late 18th century from the collections of the two houses. This central element of the exhibition is supplemented by selected loans from other collections.
Picture
Exhibition view of “Maria Sibylla Merian and the Tradition of Flower Depiction” Photo: Städel Museum
The Exhibition traced the history of flower painting and drawing taking in other pictorial themes of natural history in printmaking and illustration along the way. Around 150 works on paper and vellum dating from 16th to the late 18th century were on display from the collections of both museums. This core selection was supplemented by specially chosen pieces on loan from other collections.

The video below was made specifically for the exhibition in Frankfurt and tells the story of her documentation of the metamorphosis of caterpillars from pupa into butterflies - or as she called them "little birds".
Maria Merian’s Butterflies 
Venue: The Queen's Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse
​Dates: 17th March - 23rd July 2017

This is the same exhibition as was held in London in 2016 (see below). 

​This link allows you to explore the exhibition and to see the images in the exhibition
Picture
Cassava with White Peacock Butterfly and young Golden Tegu by Maria Sibylla Merian. Royal Collection Trust / (C) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016
Maria Merian's Butterflies by Kate Heard
This is a small but fat book with lavish illustrations of the works in the exhibition. It includes lots of double page spreads of edge to edge illustrations plus a lot of cropped images of the details.

This is one of the best books I've seen for giving you almost as good a view of the images as I saw in the exhibition.​
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Royal Collection Trust;
Publication date (1st edition) 4 April 2016

Rated 4.7 out of 5 by 26 reviews in UK
Rated 4.7 out of 5 by 27 reviews in USA
​
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An Ode to Maria Sibylla Merian 
Venue:  Prentenkabinet Late 17de Eeuw (late seventeenth-century print room) at the Rijksmuseum, Museumstraat 1
1071 XX Amsterdam
Dates: 24 March to 13 June 2017 
The presentation includes
  • two publications by Merian and
  • thirteen photomontages by art historian Ella Reitsma inspired by Merian’s work. The photomontages attest to her great interest in early botanical drawings and old plants that still survive and bloom in gardens today
EXHIBITIONS in 2016

Maria Merian’s Butterflies ​
​Venue: Queen’s Gallery, London SW1A
​Dates: 14 Apr 2016 - Sunday, 9 Oct 2016
Picture
View of the exhibition and the luxury counterpoint edition of Metamophosis
Maria Merian's Butterflies tells Merian’s story through her works in the Royal Collection, acquired by George III. Many are luxury versions of the plates of the Metamorphosis, partially printed and partially hand painted onto vellum by the artist herself.
This was an excellent exhibition. As usual the presentation by the Queen's gallery is both informative and impeccable. It was both a treat and a revelation to see these originals which were originally acquired by King George III.

Some 60+ images were on display covering a range of the work of Merian - with a few images by her daughters and of the context in Amsterdam and Surinam (in South America).

The works in the Royal Collection are a luxury version of the plates used for the book.

The paintings versions created when a counterpoint proof was made of the insects on vellum - with the etchings marks on display in brown. The work has then been painted in watercolour. Given the method used it allowed scope for minor changes to be made between the plate used in the book and the unique paintings created on vellum. It also means that one views the images in the way originally drawn by Merian (as opposed to the reversed image in the printed version).
Read my ​REVIEW: Maria Merian's Butterflies which contains more comments about the exhibition and findings about her practices.
LIST OF PAST EXHIBITIONS dedicated to the art of Merian
  • ​Maria Sibylla Merian 1647-1717, Germanisches National Museum, Nürnberg, Germany, 1967
  • Maria Sibylla Merian: Natural History Illustrator, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, 1981; 
  • Maria Sibylla Merian, Historisches Museum Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1997–98; 
  • Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science Getty Center June 10-August 31, 2008
Merian's work has recently been included in a number of prominent and popular exhibitions about botanical and natural history art
Picture
Illuminated Copper-engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XLVIII. 1705
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Caterpillars, Butterflies (Arsenura armida) and Flower (Pallisaden Boom: Erythrina fusca), Plate 11 from Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, first published 1705
Maria Sibylla Merian and Daughters: Women of Art and Science - by Ella Reitsma
Written to accompany the exhibition "Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science" June 10–August 31, 2008 at the Getty Center
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This is a biography of Merian which documents how she defied the conventions of her time and supported herself in a life which combined travel, science and art.

Her daughters collaborated with Merian in her work and Ella Rietsma is the first author to attempt to separate Merian's work from that of her two daughters.  The book also highlights newly discovered drawings and fresh biographical details. 
Paperback: 263 pages
Publisher: Getty Publications (8 Sept. 2008) / Oxford University Press; 1 edition (September 8, 2008)

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Rated an average of
  • 4.4 out of 5* by 4 reviewers in UK
  • 4.6 out of 5* by 5 reviewers in USA

Maria Sibylla Merian Society and The 300th Anniversary
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To mark the 300th anniversary since her death, The Maria Sibylla Merian Society collaborated with the University of Amsterdam, the Artis Academy and the Artis Library to create an international conference.  Its title was Changing the Nature of Art and Science. Intersections with Maria Sibylla Merian in Amsterdam on 7, 8 and 9 June 2017.

Founded in 2014, The Maria Sibylla Merian Society is an international group open to anyone interested in Merian studies in the broadest sense, including but not exclusive to artists, historians, and scientists. The Society was founded in May of 2014 

Keynote speakers included:
  • Kay Etheridge - Professor of Biology at Gettysburg College; founding member of the Maria Sibylla Merian Society.
  • Erik A. de Jong - Artis-chair for Culture, Landscape and Nature, Faculty of the Humanities at the University of Amsterdam since 2009
  • George McGavin - Honorary Research Associate of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History; Fellow of the Linnean Society and the Royal Geographical Society; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.
  • ​Redmond O'Hanlon - natural history editor of the Times Literary Supplement for 15 years
  • Katharina Schmidt-Loske Founding member of the Maria Sibylla Merian Society and Head of a research center of historical biology - Biohistoricum - at the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Leibniz-Institute for Animal Biodiversity, Bonn. 
REFERENCE
Details of the content of the programme and keynote speakers

Online galleries
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A lot of the online galleries of Merian's work are in German
Picture
Illuminated Copper engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate XXII (1705)
Picture
Illuminated Copper engraving from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, Plate IX. Maria Sibylla Merian, 1705

​The OU History of Science Collection has made available an album of 48 photos of a book of engravings my Maria Merian
Picture
from the Maria Merian album on Flickr uploaded by the OU History of Science Collection (click image to see original)

Articles and blog posts
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Picture
Plate from ''Erucarum Ortus'' (1679-1717)
Flowers, Butterflies and Insects: All 154 Engravings from "Erucarum Ortus" - a Dover Pictorial Archive publication
This book is typical of Dover publications and comprises complete full pages of fine-line images of roses, butterflies, tulips, caterpillars, and other specimens of plant and insect life in elegant full-page compositions.

​These plates replicate the engravings and are reprinted from the classic and influential works of the famous entomologist and natural history/botanical artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). New English captions.
​Paperback: 160 pages
​Publisher: Dover Publications (June 1, 1991)
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In 2022, a Royal Society and BBC collaboration produced a 'cartoon' animation of her story in The woman whose paintings changed science forever

You can view the video below.

The Maria Sibylla Merian Society
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The Maria Sybilla Merian Society was founded in 2014
EVENTS:
More Past Masters of Botanical Art & Illustration
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