Merian, Maria Sibylla

Dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium. Amsterdam: J. Oosterwyk, 1719 — De Europische Insecten. Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard, 1730



2 works in one volume, folio (20 1/4 x 13 3/4 in.; 515 x 350 mm). Dissertatio: Dutch text, handcolored engraved frontispiece by J. Ossterwyk after F. Ottens, handcolored engraved vignette on title-page and coat of arms on dedication leaf, 72 handcolored engraved plates; short marginal tear to frontispiece repaired, minor staining along fore-edge of plates 36–40, small loss to bottom margin of plate 61. De Europische Insecten: Dutch text, half title, title-page printed in red and black, handcolored engraved vignette on title, 184 handcolored engraved plates on 47 leaves, handcolored engraved vignette on final text leaf. Contemporary Dutch vellum, center arabesque cartouche on both boards, globe tools in the corners, the spine in 9 compartments with raised bands and manuscript title; rebacked, preserving the original spine, slightly soiled and stained.

Robert de Belder (sale, Sotheby's London, 27–28 April 1987, lot 238

Dissertatio: Dunthorne 205; Great Flower Books 67;  Hunt 467 (1726 edition); Landwehr 131; Nissen BBI 1341; Oak Spring Flora 101 — De Europische Insecten:  Hunt 483 (French edition, same publisher and year); Landwehr 136; Nissen BBI 1342

The De Belder copy, containing two cornerstone works by Maria Sybilla Merian. The first work is the second edition (with the Latin title-page) of Maria Sybilla Merian's classic study on tropical insects. Her work gave "an unprecedented glimpse of the teeming insect life of tropical South America, with gorgeous butterflies flying around luxuriant flowering or fruiting plants and with large many-coloured catepillars crawling over the the leaves. [The plates] have earned Maria Merian an honoured place in the history of tropical entomology as also in botanical illustration" (W. T. Stearn, introduction to The Wondrous Transformation of Catepillars, 1978)

Maria Sybilla was the daughter of the well-known Swiss engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian. On her father's death, her Dutch mother married the flower painter Jacob Marrell. It was one of his pupils, Johann Graff of Nuremberg, who first taught Maria to paint, and they later married. Her chief interest was in entomology, and her first book on the insects of Europe, with fine colored plates of insects and flowers, was published in 1679. The present edition is the first folio edition and the first appearance of the full suite of Maria Merian's plates of European insects, with many insects presented in different stages of metamorphosis on or about the flowers.

When the Dutch West Indies Company returned with tropical insect specimens, Maria decided to visit the Dutch colony of Surinam, along with her daughter Dorothea, to study and paint insect life there. Arriving in September 1699, they stayed for nearly two years studying and recording plants and insects. For this the second edition, her elder daughter Johanna travelled to Surinam to complete her mother's work. The latter died in 1717 before the final twelve plates were published. The plates were mostly engraved by Jan Pieter Sluyter and Joseph Mulder. A fine copy.