Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium: In qua erucæ ac vermes Surinamenses ... in quibus reperta sunt ...

Abstract

"First edition, in Latin, of one of the most important works by the most famous female artist for natural history in the 17th and 18th centuries, showing Surinam insects coloured by a contemporary hand. Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) was a German-Dutch painter of plants, flowers and insects. She was the first to systematically draw insects together with the plants they eat and she is also known for the fact that she was the first to depict the different stages of the metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies. The present work is a prime example of the first edition of Merian’s famous and seminal work on Surinam insects – this first edition was published in 1705 as Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium in both a Dutch and a Latin edition. In 1699, she went to Surinam to study insects and butterflies, including caterpillars, but an illness forced her to return in 1701. The Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, based on the notes and drawings she made there, contains beautifully executed full-page plates, showing insects and other animals together with the plants and flowers that they eat, which she studied during her stay in Surinam. It includes caterpillars and butterflies and their metamorphosis, worms, toads, lizards, snakes, spiders, shells and the metamorphosis of tadpoles into frogs. It is her most famous and in many ways most important work because she was the first to show the then unknown metamorphosis of butterflies and beetles from Surinam and because it also showed other animals besides insects and plants, such as iguanas and snakes."-- Provided by vendor.