Insects of Surinam
by Maria Sibylla Merian
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Description
The masterwork of an entomological pioneer At a time when few women were educated or literate - and rarely travelled - German-born naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) made history with her studies of insects in Surinam. Trained as a copperplate engraver and watercolorist, she documented the metamorphosis of butterflies, laying the foundation for modern entomology. What Merian observed when breeding native species of butterfly triggered her curiosity, and spurred her to show more further investigation; the development from ovum, via larva and chrysalis, to adult butterfly was not fully understood in the 17th century. And not every pupa developed into a butterfly, which puzzled Merian for a long time. On seeing a collection of butterflies from Dutch Guiana, modern Surinam, she decided to study tropical flora and fauna, to discover whether the moths and butterflies she saw in collections shared the same life cycle as those she had bred: the egg and caterpillar stage. In 1699 she sailed for South America with daughter Dorothea, the first time any woman had ventured on a journey of exploration on this scale. Having evaluated and categorized her specimens, in 1705 she published her major work Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, in Dutch and Latin. She made 60 copperplate engravings to illustrate the stages of insect development, arranged around the cultivated and wild plants she had encountered on her travels. With its detailed text and imagery, the Metamorphosis is the first work on the natural history of Surinam. For 17th century Europeans it was an insight into an unknown world. TASCHEN's reprint of a hand-colored first edition copy includes the complete plates with a commentary by Katharina Schmidt-Loske. Merian accomplished a pioneering achievement of the modern age. This publication pays homage to her work and offers readers an opportunity to appreciate her sumptuous engravings. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Purely bloody amazing. I'm so very glad this book was recommended to me, even if most of what I did was look at the lovely pictures and struggle with the language just enough to sort out what each picture was of.
Lovely work indeed.
Lovely work indeed.
Just Outstanding, set the basic groundwork for future methods of illustrating this type of flora and fauna. While not always scrupulously accurate it remains a groundbreaking piece of artistic work.
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Author Information
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Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Insel-Bücherei (Nr. 2012)
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Insects of Surinam
- Original title
- Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium Ofte Verandering Der Surinaamsche Insecten
- Original publication date
- 1705
- Important places
- Suriname
- Original language*
- Latijn
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 151
- Popularity
- 217,399
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.61)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, German, Latin
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 2
