Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), a German artist and teacher, was fascinated by insects and plants and went to great lengths to collect, study and paint a wide variety of specimens. Her drawings and paintings were reproduced in exquisite engravings collected and published in several books over her lifetime. At the age of 52 she made a trip to the Dutch colony of Suriname in South America. Accompanied by her 21-year-old daughter, she spent two years studying and recording the flora and fauna of that region before returning home where she started work on the illustrated book, the Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (Metamorphoses of the Insects of Surinam’), examining the life cycles of the insects in the territory.
The Getty Center museum notes that Merian and her two daughters, also artists, “raised the artistic standards of natural history illustration and helped transform the field of entomology, the study of insects.”
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