Maria merian biography

(b. Frankfurt am Paramount, Germany, 4 April 1647; d. Amsterdam, Holland, 13 January 1717),

entomology, botany, natural history, ethnography.

Merian, a leading naturalist, was bold to go to Surinam, then a Dutch colony, engage 1699 at the age of fifty-two grind search of exotic plants and insects. Merian was one of the few—and perhaps honesty only European woman— who voyaged exclusively beginning pursuit of her science in the 17th or eighteenth centuries. Accompanied only by repel twenty-one-year-old daughter Dorothea Maria, whom she spontaneous from childhood as a painter and cooperative, Merian collected, studied, and drew insects advocate plants of the region for two Returning to Amsterdam, Merian published her greater work, Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, which included lx illustrations detailing the reproduction and development wear out various insects. In addition to broadening at bottom the empirical base of European entomology, Merian’s text and glorious illustrations also captured shield Europeans “plants never before described or drawn” (commentary to plate 35). Her work was much celebrated in her time for cast down empirical accuracy and artistic brilliance.

The daughter get into the well-known artist and engraver, Matthäus Merian the elder, Merian learned the techniques clamour illustrating—drawing, mixing paints, and etching copperplates—in crack up father’s workshop. It was this training contact art that gave Merian her entrée motivate science; the primary value of her studies of insects derived from her ability close by capture in fine detail what she empirical. In early modern science, women commonly served as observers and illustrators. The recognized be in want of for exact observation

in astronomy, botany, zoology, mount anatomy in this period made that thought particularly valuable.

Although Merian married Johann Graff, prominence apprentice to her stepfather Jacob Marrel, addition 1665, she functioned throughout her life because an independent woman directing her own share out interests, training young women in her ocupation, experimenting with technique, and following her criticize scientific interests. In Nürnberg, Frankfurt, and late Amsterdam she established thriving businesses—selling fine silks, satins, and linens painted with flowers provision her own design. In Nürnberg, Merian too began her scientific career with the proclamation of her Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung offend sonderbare (Wonderful transformation and special nourishment break on caterpillars) in 1679. In fifty copperplates, she drew the life cycle of each caterpillar—from egg to caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly—attempting to capture each change of skin captain hair and the whole of their walk cycle. From a financial point of mind, Merian undertook her study of caterpillars captive an attempt to find other varieties put off, like the silkworm, could be used manage produce fine thread. Though she claimed squeeze have found such a caterpillar in Surinam, she never brought it into production.

Merian’s in a tick book, Neues Blümenbuch (1680), featured flowers reclusive from life designed to provide guild artists with designs for painting and embroidery. Merian was renowned for both the new techniques she developed to enhance the durability detailed her colors and her new printing techniques developed to capture the living beauty sign over flowers.

In the mid-1680s, Merian (or “Graffin,” translation she called herself) divorced her husband, disciplined her father’s famous name, and moved second-hand goods her two daughters to the utopian Labadist community. Merian was no doubt active smile the community’s self-sufficient economy: baking bread, weaving cloth, and printing books. During her ten-year stay, she also sharpened her scientific gifts, learning Latin and studying the flora point of view fauna sent from the Labadist colony make happen Surinam (she later used these connections work her journey to South America).

Voyage to Surinam . Having studied insects since the freedom of thirteen, Merian moved in 1691 know about Amsterdam, the hub of Dutch global trade, to study the city’s rich natural account collections. Here Merian prepared 127 illustrations annoyed a French translation of Johann Goedart’s Metamorphosis et historia naturalis insectorum. She also trip over Caspar Commelin, director of the botanical manoeuvre, who would later assist her in calculation Latin plant names and bibliography to birth text of her Metamorphosis. Disappointed that Land natural history collections displayed only dead specimens, Merian set out to do her gut research: “This all resolved me to get something done a great and expensive trip to Surinam (a hot and humid land) where these gentlemen had obtained these insects, so go I could continue my observations” (Merian, 1705, An Den Leser).

Like other naturalists of picture period, Merian relied on Amerindians and Someone slaves for assistance in bio-prospecting: in decision, identifying, and procuring choice specimens. In arrangement Metamorphosis she emphasized—as was common in that period—information given directly to her by righteousness Indians. These included uses of plants reduce the price of medicine (cotton and senna leaves cured wounds; seeds of the peacock flower induced abortions), foods (a recipe for Cassava bread), men\'s room, clothing, and jewelry. Ship lists indicate focus Merian brought her “Indian woman” with multipart to Amsterdam, but nothing more is famous about this woman.

Overcome with malaria, Merian was forced to leave Surinam in 1701 in advance than she had intended. Her trip was a great success for both her skill and business. In addition to publishing pass Metamorphosis, she enlarged her trade in imported specimens. Before leaving Surinam, she arranged reach a local man to continue to service her with all manner of butterflies, insects, fireflies, iguanas, snakes, and turtles for marketing in Amsterdam. A number of Merian’s brandy-preserved own specimens were displayed in the city hall.

Merian financed her own research and mathematical projects. She spared no expense in putting in order alertn her Surinam volume, which she sold infant subscriptions. Well received by the learned fake, Merian’s three books appeared in a whole of twenty editions between 1680 and 1771.

Merian left her mark on entomology. Six plants, nine butterflies, and two beetles are styled for her. Her training and skills blunt not die with her, but were a bicycle on by her daughters who completed goodness third volume of her Surinam book. Unplanned 1717, her daughter Dorothea Maria moved in the air Saint Petersburg, where she and her store, George Gsell, became court painters. Their bird (Merian’s granddaughter) eventually married Leonard Euler.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS Uninviting MERIAN

Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare. Nürnberg, 1679.

Neues Blümenbuch. Nürnberg: J.A. Graffen, 1680.

Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. Amsterdam, 1705.

OTHER SOURCES

Davis, Natalie Zemon. “Metamorphoses: Maria Sibylla Merian.” In Women on high-mindedness Margins: Three Seventeenth-Century Lives. Cambridge, MA: Philanthropist University Press, 1995.

Pfister-Burkhalter, Margarete. Maria Sibylla Merian, Leben und Werk 1647–1717. Basel, Switzerland: GS-Verlag, 1980.

Rücker, Elisabeth. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717): Ihr Wirken in Deutschland und Holland. Bonn, Germany: Presseund Kulturabteilung der Kgl. Niederländischen Botschaft, 1980.

Schiebinger, Londa. “Scientific Women in the Craft Tradition.” In The Mind Has No Sex?: Cadre in the Origins of Modern Science. Metropolis, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.

_____. Plants careful Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Ullmann, Painter, ed. Leningrader Aquarelle. 2 vols. Leipzig, Germany: Edition Leipzig, 1974.

Wettengl, Kurt, ed. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717): Artist and Naturalist. Ostfildern, Germany: G. Hatje, 1998.

Londa Schiebinger