Tulip, Two Branches of Myrtle and Two Shells

Maria Sibylla Merian (Frankfurt-am-Main 1647 - Amsterdam 1717)

She grew up in a family of artists in Frankfurt.¹ Her father, the artist and publisher Matthäus Sibylla Merian (1593-1650), died when she was three years old.² In 1651, Maria’s mother, Johanna Sibylla (?-1691), remarried flower painter Jacob Marrel (c. 1613/14-1681). Maria Sibylla was trained in his studio. At age thirteen, she devoted most of her time to studying and drawing the metamorphoses of caterpillars.³

In 1665, Maria Sibylla married an apprentice of her stepfather, Johann Andreas Graff (1637-1701). They had two daughters, Johanna Helena Graff (1668-1723) and Dorothea Maria Graff (1678–1743). In 1668, they moved to Nuremberg, where Graff, with the help of Maria Sibylla, set up a successful printing studio. Maria Sibylla continued making art: flower paintings on vellum, silk and linen, and she decorated tablecloths with birds and butterflies.⁴. She also taught women to draw. In 1675, Maria Sibylla and Johann Graff published a book of flowers, the Blumenbuch. It was meant as a teaching aid or could be used as a pattern-book for drawing and embroidering. The second and third volumes appeared in 1677 and 1680.⁵

Maria Sibylla also continued to study insects with the intention of publishing her findings in an illustrated book. The first edition of Caterpillars: Their Wondrous Transformation and Peculiar Nourishment from Flowers (Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung und sonderbare Blumennahrung), was published in 1679. The second volume followed four years later, in 1683. Foremost scientific publications, they include detailed descriptions and illustrations of the metamorphosis of caterpillars. The depiction of their life cycle, from egg to butterfly on their host plant, was imitated by artists well into the nineteenth century. The caterpillar books were sold in uncoloured, coloured and counterproof editions.⁶

In 1681, upon the death of Maria Sybilla's stepfather, Jacob Marrel, the Graff-Merian family returned to Frankfurt. In the following years, their marriage fell apart; Graff moved back to Nuremberg in 1685 and the couple officially divorced in 1691. In 1685, Maria Sybilla moved with her mother, and two daughters to Walta in Friesland, where she joined a Labadist community. There, she studied plants and insects from Suriname, brought by Labadist members who had visited the plantations in Suriname that were owned by community members. After her mother passed away in 1690, Maria Sibylla and her two daughter settled in Amsterdam and set up a workshop. A year later, her eldest daughter, Johanna Helena, married the businessman Jacob Hendrik Herolt (1660-?).

In 1699, Maria Sibylla sold all her belongings and with her youngest daughter, Dorothea Maria, embarked on a ship to Suriname to study native caterpillars, insects and plants in preparation for a publication. They settled in Paramaribo, but made regular trips to plantations of the Labadist community to catch insects. Maria Sibylla became ill, which forced the women to return to Amsterdam merely two years later. They brought with them numerous notes, sketches and dried plants and animals. A native woman came back with them as well and probably assisted with the preparation of the book. The Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, commonly known as the ‘Suriname Book’, was published in Amsterdam in 1705. It was the first scientific illustrated account on the natural history of Suriname. The publication was funded through subscriptions for (hand-coloured) luxury editions.

By the time Maria Sibylla and her daughter returned to Amsterdam, her work was well known and respected among natural scientists. From their workshop in the Kerkstraat, she and both her daughters continued to work on several editions of the Suriname and caterpillar books, but also sold separate sheets, dried insects and specimens. For her drawings, she preferred opaque and transparent watercolour on vellum. Maria Sibylla engraved her own copper-plates with a line-and-point technique. She also produced counterproofs that were hand-coloured in the workshop.⁷ Maria Sibylla corresponded with important collectors such as Hans Sloane (1660-1753) and James Petiver (1665-1718), who also bought art and specimens from her. Art collector and horticulturalist Agnes Block (1629-1704) commissioned Maria Sibylla and Johanna Helena to make drawings of the plants in her gardens at her estate ‘Vijverhof’ in Loenen aan de Vecht. One of Block’s ‘Bloemenboeken’ (book of flowers) is in the Rijksmuseum collection (inv. no. RP-T-1948119).

In 1715, Maria Sibylla suffered a stroke that left her partially paralysed and unable to work. She passed away on 13 January 1717. Two weeks before she died, Dorothea Maria sold a large part of her mother’s collection, including her study book, to Robert Areskine (1677-1718), the physician and advisor to the Russian czar Peter the Great (1672-1725). This collection is now in the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. Further, she sold Maria Sibylla’s collection of books, printing plates and other workshop materials to bookseller Johannes Oosterwijk (?-?).⁸ In 1718, Dorothea moved with her second husband, the artist Georg Gsell (1673-1740), to St Petersburg. Her personal collection, consisting of her mother’s sheets as well as her own, is now in the collection of the Kunstkamera there (the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography).

Carolyn Mensing, 2020

References
A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., Amsterdam 1718-21, III (1718), pp. 220-24; A. von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstlerlexikon, 3 vols., Vienna/Leipzig 1906-11, II (1910), p. 158; U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols., Leipzig 1907-50, XL (1930), p. 413 (entry by W.K. Zülch); F.G. Waller, Biografisch woordenboek van Noord Nederlandsche graveurs, The Hague 1938, p. 221; H. Gerson and B.W. Meijer (eds.), Ausbreitung und Nachwirkung der holländischen Malerei des 17. Jahrhunderts, Amsterdam 1983 (rev. ed.; orig. ed. 1942), pp. 202, 263, 272, 556-57 (as M.S. Graff-Merian); E. Bergvelt, De wereld binnen handbereik. Nederlandse kunst- en rariteitenverzamelingen, 1585-1735, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 1992, p. 147; A. Beyer et al. (eds.), Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, Munich 1992-, LXXXIX (2016), p. 145 (entry by L.H. Wuthrich); N. Zemon Davis, Women on the Margins: Three Seventeenth-century Lives, Cambridge 1995, pp. 140-202; I.N. Lebedeva, ‘De nalatenschap van Maria Sibylla Merian in Sint-Petersburg’, in R. Kistemake et al. (eds.), Peter de Grote en Holland. Culturele en wetenschappelijke betrekkingen tussen Rusland en Nederland ten tijde van tsaar Peter de Grote, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Amsterdams Historisch Museum) 1996, pp. 60-66; H. Kaiser, Maria Sibylla Merian: Eine Biographie, Düsseldorf 1997; L. Huet and J. Grieten, Oude meesteressen. Vrouwelijke kunstenaars in de Nederlanden, Leuven 1998, pp. 161-85; E. Kloek et al. (eds.), Vrouwen en kunst in de Republiek. Een overzicht, Hilversum 1998 (Utrechtse historische cahiers, vol. 19), p. 152; K. Wettengl (ed.), Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Kunstenares en natuuronderzoekster, exh. cat. Haarlem (Teylers Museum) 1998; E. Reitsma, with S. Ulenberg, Maria Sibilla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Museum Het Rembrandthuis)/Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum) 2008; S. Schrader et al., ‘Naturalism under the Microscope: A Technical Study of Maria Sibylla Merian's Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam’, Getty Research Journal 4 (2012), pp. 161-72; C. Grabowski, Maria Sibylla Merian zwischen Malerei und Naturforschung: Pflanzen- und Schmetterlingsbilder neu entdeckt, Berlin 2017; S.B. Pomeroy and J. Kathirithamby, Maria Sibylla Merian: Artist, Scientist, Adventurer, exh. cat. Los Angeles (J. Paul Getty Museum) 2018