Maria sibylla merian nationality

(b. Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 4 April 1647; d. Amsterdam, Netherlands, 13 January 1717),

entomology, botany, natural history, ethnography.

Merian, a leading naturalist, was bold to travel to Surinam, then a Dutch colony, in 1699 at the age of fifty-two in search of exotic plants and insects. Merian was one of the few—and perhaps the only European woman— who voyaged exclusively in pursuit of her science in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Accompanied only by her twenty-one-year-old daughter Dorothea Maria, whom she trained from childhood as a painter and assistant, Merian collected, studied, and drew insects and plants of the region for two years. Returning to Amsterdam, Merian published her major work, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, which included sixty illustrations detailing the reproduction and development of various insects. In addition to broadening significantly the empirical base of European entomology, Merian’s text and glorious illustrations also captured for Europeans “plants never before described or drawn” (commentary to plate 35). Her work was much celebrated in her time for its empirical accuracy and artistic brilliance.

The daughter of the well-known artist and engraver, Matthäus Merian the elder, Merian learned the techniques of illustrating—drawing, mixing paints, and etching copperplates—in her father’s workshop. It was this training in art that gave Merian her entrée to science; the primary value of her studies of insects derived from her ability to capture in fine detail what she observed. In early modern science, women commonly served as observers and illustrators. The recognized need for exact observation

in astronomy, botany, zoology, and anatomy in this period made that work particularly valuable.

Although Merian married Johann Graff, an apprentice to her stepfather Jacob Marrel, in 1665, she functioned throughout her life as an independent woman directing her own business interests, training young women in her trade, experimenting with technique, and following her own scientific interests. In Nürnberg, Frankfurt, and later Amsterdam she established thriving businesses—selling fine silks, satins, and linens painted with flowers of her own design. In Nürnberg, Merian also began her scientific career with the publication of her Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare (Wonderful transformation and special nourishment of caterpillars) in 1679. In fifty copperplates, she drew the life cycle of each caterpillar—from egg to caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly—attempting to capture each change of skin and hair and the whole of their life cycle. From a financial point of view, Merian undertook her study of caterpillars in an attempt to find other varieties that, like the silkworm, could be used to produce fine thread. Though she claimed to have found such a caterpillar in Surinam, she never brought it into production.

Merian’s second book, Neues Blümenbuch (1680), featured flowers drawn from life designed to provide guild artists with designs for painting and embroidery. Merian was renowned for both the new techniques she developed to enhance the durability of her colors and her new printing techniques developed to capture the living beauty of flowers.

In the mid-1680s, Merian (or “Graffin,” as she called herself) divorced her husband, reclaimed her father’s famous name, and moved with her two daughters to the utopian Labadist community. Merian was no doubt active in the community’s self-sufficient economy: baking bread, weaving cloth, and printing books. During her ten-year stay, she also sharpened her scientific skills, learning Latin and studying the flora and fauna sent from the Labadist colony in Surinam (she later used these connections for her journey to South America).

Voyage to Surinam . Having studied insects since the age of thirteen, Merian moved in 1691 to Amsterdam, the hub of Dutch global commerce, to study the city’s rich natural history collections. Here Merian prepared 127 illustrations for a French translation of Johann Goedart’s Metamorphosis et historia naturalis insectorum. She also met Caspar Commelin, director of the botanical garden, who would later assist her in adding Latin plant names and bibliography to the text of her Metamorphosis. Disappointed that Dutch natural history collections displayed only dead specimens, Merian set out to do her own research: “This all resolved me to undertake a great and expensive trip to Surinam (a hot and humid land) where these gentlemen had obtained these insects, so that I could continue my observations” (Merian, 1705, An Den Leser).

Like other naturalists of the period, Merian relied on Amerindians and African slaves for assistance in bio-prospecting: in finding, identifying, and procuring choice specimens. In her Metamorphosis she emphasized—as was common in this period—information given directly to her by the Indians. These included uses of plants in medicine (cotton and senna leaves cured wounds; seeds of the peacock flower induced abortions), foods (a recipe for Cassava bread), buildings, clothing, and jewelry. Ship lists indicate that Merian brought her “Indian woman” with her to Amsterdam, but nothing more is known about this woman.

Overcome with malaria, Merian was forced to leave Surinam in 1701 sooner than she had intended. Her trip was a great success for both her science and business. In addition to publishing her Metamorphosis, she enlarged her trade in exotic specimens. Before leaving Surinam, she arranged with a local man to continue to supply her with all manner of butterflies, insects, fireflies, iguanas, snakes, and turtles for sale in Amsterdam. A number of Merian’s brandy-preserved own specimens were displayed in the town hall.

Merian financed her own research and scientific projects. She spared no expense in preparing her Surinam volume, which she sold by subscriptions. Well received by the learned world, Merian’s three books appeared in a total of twenty editions between 1680 and 1771.

Merian left her mark on entomology. Six plants, nine butterflies, and two beetles are named for her. Her training and skills did not die with her, but were carried on by her daughters who completed the third volume of her Surinam book. In 1717, her daughter Dorothea Maria moved to Saint Petersburg, where she and her husband, George Gsell, became court painters. Their daughter (Merian’s granddaughter) eventually married Leonard Euler.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS BY MERIAN

Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare. Nürnberg, 1679.

Neues Blümenbuch. Nürnberg: J.A. Graffen, 1680.

Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. Amsterdam, 1705.

OTHER SOURCES

Davis, Natalie Zemon. “Metamorphoses: Maria Sibylla Merian.” In Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Pfister-Burkhalter, Margarete. Maria Sibylla Merian, Leben und Werk 1647–1717. Basel, Switzerland: GS-Verlag, 1980.

Rücker, Elisabeth. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717): Ihr Wirken in Deutschland und Holland. Bonn, Germany: Presseund Kulturabteilung der Kgl. Niederländischen Botschaft, 1980.

Schiebinger, Londa. “Scientific Women in the Craft Tradition.” In The Mind Has No Sex?: Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.

_____. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Ullmann, Ernst, ed. Leningrader Aquarelle. 2 vols. Leipzig, Germany: Edition Leipzig, 1974.

Wettengl, Kurt, ed. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717): Artist and Naturalist. Ostfildern, Germany: G. Hatje, 1998.

Londa Schiebinger