Lot Essay
For a similar example, cf. Howard and Ayers, China for the West, p. 304, fig.298. The flower painted in the middle is executed in the style of the Swiss-Dutch botanist Maria Sybille Merian (1646-1717) who worked in the Dutch West Indies on a botanical book published in 1705 as Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium and in 1771 as Histoire Generale des Insectes de Surninam et de toute l'Europe.