Pioneering work by female entomologist goes up for auction

A rare first edition of the 300-year-old book in which the entomologist, artist and explorer Maria Sibylla Merian details the insects of Suriname is expected to fetch up to £120,000 when it is auctioned at Sotheby’s on Tuesday.

Showing exquisitely detailed images of the plants, insects, spiders, butterflies and amphibians of Suriname at the turn of the 18th century, Merian’s Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium caused a sensation when it was published in 1705, with George III acquiring her work for the royal collection. Sotheby’s said it was “one of the most important natural history books of the period”, with very few studies of insects having been done previously, and Merian one of the first naturalists to observe them directly, as well as one of the first female scientific explorers.

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Merian, who was born in 1647 in Germany and whose image adorned the 500-deutschmark note until the introduction of the euro, was “very much ahead of her time”, said Cecilie Gasseholm at Sotheby’s. As a child, she collected insects for the artwork of her stepfather, the still-life painter Jacob Marrel, and became fascinated by entomology, going on to start her own caterpillar collection. Marrel taught her to paint, and as an 18-year-old she married one of his pupils. She published her first book, about the insects of Europe, in 1679.

She later divorced her husband and, inspired by a collection of insects from Suriname, set out with her daughter Dorothea for South America in September 1699. She would stay for almost two years, recording the insects and plants of the region for what would eventually become the work up for auction this week. Malaria then forced her to return to Amsterdam, and she died a pauper.

“Merian and her daughter stayed for nearly two years studying and recording the plants and insects, the results of their labours being the magnificent Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium,” said Gasseholm. “She took a great interest in the metamorphosis and life cycles of insects, something that was largely unknown at that time. She also understood that there was a correlation between species and the particular plants for feeding – a connection she showed in her artwork.”

Sotheby’s said that Merian’s journey to Suriname “was possibly the first time ever that anyone had set out on a journey solely for the purposes of science … The pictures are brilliantly fun and full of personality. At times they verge on gruesome: one shows a frog being devoured by water bugs,” it added.

The book, a first edition of the Dutch text, has been in a private collection until now. The auction house, which will offer the volume with a guide price of £80,000 to £120,000, said that only five copies of the Dutch text edition have been auctioned since 1983.