Johanna Helena Herolt-Graff (Frankfurt am Main 1668-1723/43)
Johanna Helena Herolt-Graff (Frankfurt am Main 1668-1723/43)

A sheet of studies of yellow and purple verbascum, with the life-cycle of a moth

Details
Johanna Helena Herolt-Graff (Frankfurt am Main 1668-1723/43)
A sheet of studies of yellow and purple verbascum, with the life-cycle of a moth
with number '148' (verso)
black chalk and watercolour on vellum
38 x 30 cm.
Provenance
Johan Pieter van den Brande or Pieter van den Brande, Middelburg (according to a note in the RKD archives), by descent to
Baron Elbert Carsilius van Pallandt (1898-1964); Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, 26 September 1972, part of lot 322b (as H. Henstenburgh).
Exhibited
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Paris, Fondation Custodia, and Brussels, Bibliothèque Albert 1er, Le Cabinet d'un Amateur: Dessins flamands et hollandais des XVIe et XVIIe siècles d'une collection privée d'Amsterdam, 1976-77, no. 75, pl. 116 (as H. Henstenburgh; catalogue by J. Giltaij).

Brought to you by

Harriet West
Harriet West

Lot Essay

This drawing belongs to a group of 21 natural history watercolours by the same hand which emerged from the van Pallandt collection in 1972. They were described in the sale as Anton Henstenburgh (1695-1781), but Sam Segal later suggested that the drawings should be given to Johanna Herolt-Graf.

Herolt-Graf was both daughter and colleague of the successful botanical artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Though Joanna Helena could mimic her mother’s work, she developed an individual style of which the present drawing is a characteristic example. It is typical of her confident use of pictorial space with its intertwining flowers stretched to fill the sheet. Still, despite Joanna Helena’s unique approach, the influence of Maria Sybilla Merian was enormous. The choice of subject, for example, is clearly connected to her mother’s publication on moths and caterpillars, Die Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und Sonderbare Blumennahrung, published in Nürnberg and Frankfurt, 1679-83 which was illustrated throughout with similar depictions of the metamorphosis of moths.

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