Details
MERIAN, Maria Sibylla (1647-1717). Dissertatio de Generatione et Metamorphosibus Insectorum Surinamensium. the Hague: Pieter Gosse, 1726.
2° (522 x 358mm). Titles and text in Larin and french, titles printed in red and black with engraved vignettes. One engraved headpiece, 72 FINE HAND-COLOURED ENGRAVED PLATES by J.Mulder, P.Sluyter and D.Stopendaal. (Lacking half-titles, small section from lower outer corner of first title torn away, oxidisation of sky in plates 70 and 72.) Late-18th-century English red morocco gilt, g.e. Provenance: John Arden (of Cheshire and Yorkshire, armorial bookplate).
FINE COPY of the first edition with French text. Maria Merian was the daughter of the well-known Swiss engraver-publisher Matthaeus Merian. Her mother was Dutch and on Matthaeus's premature death she married the flower painter Jacob Marrell. It was one of his pupils, Johann Graff of Nuremberg, who first taught Maria to paint, and later they married. Maria was primarily interested in entomology and her first book, on the insects of Europe, with fine coloured plates of insects and flowers, was published in 1679. Some years later, having left Graff, she was shown a collection of tropical insects which had been brought back from Surinam. This inspired her, and, together with her daughter Dorothea, she embarked on what at that time was a remarkably enterprising journey; in June 1701 they arrived in South America.
They stayed for two years studying the plants and insects, the results of their labours being the magnificent Metamorphosisi Insectorum Surinamensium with 60 plates, published in 1705. The present copy is one of a number of editions which appeared after the author's death in 1717, and includes 12 additional plates by Maria's elder daughter Johanna. The work was not the first colour plate book to appear in the 18th century, but Maria was the first to produce illustrations of the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths from chrysalises. These plates, mostly engraved by Pieter Sluyter and Joseph Mulder, show Merian to have been one of the finest botanical artists of her day as well as a skilful entomologist. As Landwehr says, "her artistic grouping of the insects amidst the tropical flora makes this book one of the most beautiful and unusual in the whole range of natural history." Nissen BBI 1341.
2° (522 x 358mm). Titles and text in Larin and french, titles printed in red and black with engraved vignettes. One engraved headpiece, 72 FINE HAND-COLOURED ENGRAVED PLATES by J.Mulder, P.Sluyter and D.Stopendaal. (Lacking half-titles, small section from lower outer corner of first title torn away, oxidisation of sky in plates 70 and 72.) Late-18th-century English red morocco gilt, g.e. Provenance: John Arden (of Cheshire and Yorkshire, armorial bookplate).
FINE COPY of the first edition with French text. Maria Merian was the daughter of the well-known Swiss engraver-publisher Matthaeus Merian. Her mother was Dutch and on Matthaeus's premature death she married the flower painter Jacob Marrell. It was one of his pupils, Johann Graff of Nuremberg, who first taught Maria to paint, and later they married. Maria was primarily interested in entomology and her first book, on the insects of Europe, with fine coloured plates of insects and flowers, was published in 1679. Some years later, having left Graff, she was shown a collection of tropical insects which had been brought back from Surinam. This inspired her, and, together with her daughter Dorothea, she embarked on what at that time was a remarkably enterprising journey; in June 1701 they arrived in South America.
They stayed for two years studying the plants and insects, the results of their labours being the magnificent Metamorphosisi Insectorum Surinamensium with 60 plates, published in 1705. The present copy is one of a number of editions which appeared after the author's death in 1717, and includes 12 additional plates by Maria's elder daughter Johanna. The work was not the first colour plate book to appear in the 18th century, but Maria was the first to produce illustrations of the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths from chrysalises. These plates, mostly engraved by Pieter Sluyter and Joseph Mulder, show Merian to have been one of the finest botanical artists of her day as well as a skilful entomologist. As Landwehr says, "her artistic grouping of the insects amidst the tropical flora makes this book one of the most beautiful and unusual in the whole range of natural history." Nissen BBI 1341.