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MERIAN, Maria Sibylla (1647-1717). Histoire des Insectes de l'Europe. Translated from Dutch into French by Jean Marret. Amsterdam: Jean Frederic Bernard, 1730.
Royal 2° (496 x 352mm). Half title, title in red and black with engraved vignette by Picart. 184 hand-coloured plates on 47 leaves (4 leaves having 3 plates per leaf and 43 leaves 4 plates per leaf), hand-coloured engraved tailpiece. (A2 almost detached with resultant small creases, tears and discolouration to outer and upper margins, V2 holed with loss of characters 'V2' from lower margin.)
Maria Sibylla MERIAN. Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium ... Dissertation sur la génération et les transformations des insectes de Surinam, translated by J. Rousset de Missy. The Hague: Pierre Gosse, 1726. 2°. Titles and text in Latin and French, titles in red and black with engraved vignettes, engraved arms of the dedicatee Diego de Mendoça on dedication leaf. Hand-coloured engraved frontispiece by F. Ottens bound between Latin and French titles, 72 hand-coloured engraved plates by Joseph Mulder, Pieter Sluyter and D. Stopendaal. (Some soiling and minor repairs to preliminaries.)
2 works in 2 volumes, uniform late 18th-century English blue straight-grained morocco gilt by [?]Staggemeier and Welcher, covers with wide Greek key-pattern border, spines in 7 compartments with double raised bands, red morocco onlay between pairs of bands tooled with metope and pentaglyph roll, lettered in the second compartment, turn-ins tooled in gilt with Greek key-roll, marbled endpapers, gilt edges (corners bumped, extremities scuffed).
A VERY FINE SET, BRINGING TOGETHER THE FIRST EDITIONS IN FRENCH OF MERIAN'S TWO MAJOR WORKS. The author embarked on the two month voyage to the Dutch colony of Surinam in South America in June 1699, accompanied by her younger daughter Dorothea. The two endured the rigours of the tropical climate for 21 months in their endeavours to discover, collect and record the insect life, as a complement to the Raupenbuch, their work on European insects. Their sketches were first made from life and then painted on vellum. When mother and daughter left the colony in June, 1701 they were 'loaded with rolled vellum paintings, brandied butterflies, bottles with crocodiles and snakes, lizards' eggs, bulbs, chrysalises that had not yet opened, and many round boxes full of pressed insects for sale' (Kurt Wettengl, ed., Maria Sibylla Merian 1647-1717, Ostfildern, 1998, pp. 180-81). Work on the Metamorphosis continued in Amsterdam until the publication of the first edition in 1705 with 60 plates, depicting the insects life-size. Merian's early training as a botanical artist is evident in the fine depiction of the plants on which the insects feed and breed. As Sitwell states, these 'are drawn with the same delicacy and precision as the insects themselves, and the book may thus legitimately be considered a florilegium also' (Great Flower Books p. 30). Further editions of the work followed in 1719, 1726, and 1730, containing not only the original 60 plates but 12 additional engravings of reptiles, amphibians and marsupials, originally intended for a projected second volume.
Bernard published French and Dutch editions of the Raupenbuch in the same year, 1730. These included most of the plates, reworked with the addition of insects, of Merian's first work, the Blumenbuch; plates no. 13, 16, 17 and 24 in the Blumenbuch are the only ones not to have been used in this way; two plates described in the French text (nos. CLXX and CLXXII) were apparently omitted. Bernard obtained Merian's plates from Oosterwijk, who had purchased them from Merian's daughter Dorothea in 1718. Ultimately, these works became part of the Histoire générale des insectes de Surinam et de toute l'Europe, issued by the Paris publisher, L. C. Desnos. It is interesting to compare the style of Merian's illustrations in the two works, the European insects having the characteristics of an innocent nature, while the size and form of the tropical insects is a grotesque contrast to the exotic beauty of the plants on which they feed. Nissen BBI, 1341 & 1342; Dunthorne 205 (1st work); Hunt 483 & 467; Pfeiffer, Merian A8, B5; Wettengl, Maria Sibylla Merian p. 226, no. 126 (2nd work). (2)
Royal 2° (496 x 352mm). Half title, title in red and black with engraved vignette by Picart. 184 hand-coloured plates on 47 leaves (4 leaves having 3 plates per leaf and 43 leaves 4 plates per leaf), hand-coloured engraved tailpiece. (A2 almost detached with resultant small creases, tears and discolouration to outer and upper margins, V2 holed with loss of characters 'V2' from lower margin.)
Maria Sibylla MERIAN. Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium ... Dissertation sur la génération et les transformations des insectes de Surinam, translated by J. Rousset de Missy. The Hague: Pierre Gosse, 1726. 2°. Titles and text in Latin and French, titles in red and black with engraved vignettes, engraved arms of the dedicatee Diego de Mendoça on dedication leaf. Hand-coloured engraved frontispiece by F. Ottens bound between Latin and French titles, 72 hand-coloured engraved plates by Joseph Mulder, Pieter Sluyter and D. Stopendaal. (Some soiling and minor repairs to preliminaries.)
2 works in 2 volumes, uniform late 18th-century English blue straight-grained morocco gilt by [?]Staggemeier and Welcher, covers with wide Greek key-pattern border, spines in 7 compartments with double raised bands, red morocco onlay between pairs of bands tooled with metope and pentaglyph roll, lettered in the second compartment, turn-ins tooled in gilt with Greek key-roll, marbled endpapers, gilt edges (corners bumped, extremities scuffed).
A VERY FINE SET, BRINGING TOGETHER THE FIRST EDITIONS IN FRENCH OF MERIAN'S TWO MAJOR WORKS. The author embarked on the two month voyage to the Dutch colony of Surinam in South America in June 1699, accompanied by her younger daughter Dorothea. The two endured the rigours of the tropical climate for 21 months in their endeavours to discover, collect and record the insect life, as a complement to the Raupenbuch, their work on European insects. Their sketches were first made from life and then painted on vellum. When mother and daughter left the colony in June, 1701 they were 'loaded with rolled vellum paintings, brandied butterflies, bottles with crocodiles and snakes, lizards' eggs, bulbs, chrysalises that had not yet opened, and many round boxes full of pressed insects for sale' (Kurt Wettengl, ed., Maria Sibylla Merian 1647-1717, Ostfildern, 1998, pp. 180-81). Work on the Metamorphosis continued in Amsterdam until the publication of the first edition in 1705 with 60 plates, depicting the insects life-size. Merian's early training as a botanical artist is evident in the fine depiction of the plants on which the insects feed and breed. As Sitwell states, these 'are drawn with the same delicacy and precision as the insects themselves, and the book may thus legitimately be considered a florilegium also' (Great Flower Books p. 30). Further editions of the work followed in 1719, 1726, and 1730, containing not only the original 60 plates but 12 additional engravings of reptiles, amphibians and marsupials, originally intended for a projected second volume.
Bernard published French and Dutch editions of the Raupenbuch in the same year, 1730. These included most of the plates, reworked with the addition of insects, of Merian's first work, the Blumenbuch; plates no. 13, 16, 17 and 24 in the Blumenbuch are the only ones not to have been used in this way; two plates described in the French text (nos. CLXX and CLXXII) were apparently omitted. Bernard obtained Merian's plates from Oosterwijk, who had purchased them from Merian's daughter Dorothea in 1718. Ultimately, these works became part of the Histoire générale des insectes de Surinam et de toute l'Europe, issued by the Paris publisher, L. C. Desnos. It is interesting to compare the style of Merian's illustrations in the two works, the European insects having the characteristics of an innocent nature, while the size and form of the tropical insects is a grotesque contrast to the exotic beauty of the plants on which they feed. Nissen BBI, 1341 & 1342; Dunthorne 205 (1st work); Hunt 483 & 467; Pfeiffer, Merian A8, B5; Wettengl, Maria Sibylla Merian p. 226, no. 126 (2nd work). (2)
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