CIRCA 1735

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), the daughter and granddaughter of famed Frankfurt artists, engravers and printers, became an artist herself and an amateur botanist. She wrote in her journal "From my youth onwards I have been concerned with the study of insects, in which I began with silkworms in my native city...which led me to collect all the caterpillars I could find in order to study their metamorphosis". This pattern is a combination of details from three studies in her third Raupenbuch (caterpillar book), while its border is highly reminiscent of designs by Cornelis Pronk for the VOC. See Antiques magazine, August 2000, for comprehensive research on Merian by Charlotte Jacob-Hanson