MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN.
She was the daughter of Matthew Merian, the well-known geographer and engraver, and born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1647. Her father published a topographical work in Germany, in thirty-one folio volumes. Her mother was the daughter of Theodore de Bry, an engraver of repute.
A remarkable circumstance, and one contrary to the usual experience of extraordinary persons, was, that Sibylla devoted herself to the vocation of the artist in opposition to her mother’s wishes and in the face of great difficulties. In this respect she differed from most other women artists; for they, as a rule, were led to the study by parental example or domestic training.
From the early childhood of this singular girl she manifested a persevering spirit of research in natural history, with a fondness for examining specimens of vegetable and animal life. It is possible that this natural predilection was owing to one of those accidents that so often determine the course and bent of human intellect. Her mother, shortly before her birth, it is said, took a fancy to make a collection of curious stones, mussels, and different sorts of caterpillars. However this may be, it is certain that the child, at a very early age, showed the same taste, and no maternal reproaches or punishment could keep her from indulging the strange fancy. She would, however, conceal her treasures. At last her step-father, the painter Jacob Marrel, having persuaded the mother to consent, arranged it so that the girl took lessons of the famous flower-painter, Abraham Mignon.
In the year 1665, at eighteen, she married John Andrew Graf, a painter and designer in architecture. The marriage was not a happy one, but she lived with Graf nearly twenty years in Nuremberg, in a lonely and secluded manner, devoted solely to her art, as she herself says in the preface to one of her published works, giving up intercourse with society, and beguiling her time by the examination of the various species of insects, of which she made drawings, and by the study of their transformations.
She painted her specimens first on parchment, and many of those pictures were distributed among amateurs. Encouraged by them, she published, in 1679, a work entitled “The Wonderful Transformations of Caterpillars,” a quarto volume, with copper engravings, executed by herself after her own drawings. Another volume appeared in 1684.
The affairs of Graf having become embarrassed, and his conduct being much censured, he was compelled to leave his family and go out of the country. After this separation, Sibylla never assumed her husband’s name in any of her publications, but issued them under her maiden name. About 1684 she went to Frankfort, and prepared for a journey to West Friesland with her mother and daughters. There she became possessed with the religious enthusiasm which had driven so many women into strange doings, and joined the sect of the Labadists, taking up her abode at the Castle Bosch.
Sibylla did not yield her energies, however, entirely to the dominion of this kind of phrensy; her old habits of study and research followed her. Butterflies and worms again occupied her attention, and she soon took a deep interest in all the collections of animals from the East and West Indies which she discovered were within her reach.
Among those persons whose collections were most admired by her was Fridericus Ruysch, a doctor of medicine and professor of botany, and the father of the Rachel Ruysch already noticed. It is not difficult to believe that the example and conversation of a woman so gifted and so devoted to study as Madame Merian had a decisive influence upon the character of the youthful Rachel.
Our heroic and industrious heroine was delighted at the opportunity of examining such interesting collections; for, besides the pleasure her investigations in natural history afforded her, she was stimulated by an inextinguishable desire to know all that could be learned about that department of the animal kingdom. At length, anxious to see the metamorphoses and food of American insects, she determined to undertake that laborious and expensive journey to Surinam which she accomplished in June, 1699. The States of Holland assisted her with the means of travel. Her journey gave occasion to the following lines by a French poet:
“Sibylla à Surinam va chercher la nature,
Avec l’esprit d’un Sage, et le cœur d’un Heros.”
The place of her destination was Dutch Guiana, often called Surinam, from a river of that name, on which the capital, Paramaribo, is situated. It is said that, one day during her residence there, the Indians brought Madame Merian a number of living lantern-flies, which she put into a box; but they made so much noise at night, that she rose from her bed and opened their prison. The multitude of fiery flames issuing from the box so terrified her that she immediately dropped it on the ground. Hence came marvelous stories of the strong light emitted by that insect.
She remained in America nearly two years, till the summer of 1701, notwithstanding the unfavorable effect of the climate on her health, and the difficulties thus encountered in the prosecution of her studies. Though strong of will, she could not long bear up against such an enemy, and was obliged to return much sooner than suited her inclinations.
In September she was again in Holland, where her splendid paintings, on parchment, of American insects, excited the greatest admiration among the connoisseurs. They pressed her to publish a work that would open a world of vegetables and animals hitherto unknown; and, in spite of the great expense, she resolved at last, without expectation of a return for her outlay, to engrave her pictures for publication. The reward of her labors was to be in the sale of successive editions. This work was entitled “Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, etc. The text drawn up by Gaspar Commelin, from the MSS. of the author.”
In 1771 a collection of Madame Merian’s works was published in Paris, translated into French; and to this day are to be seen engravings, nearly of the size of the original, of the various paintings made by this enthusiastic woman of objects that struck her fancy—caterpillars, butterflies, spiders, snakes, and various kinds of animals and plants—executed with all the luxury of brilliant coloring, and illustrated by choice poetry.
Her great work was entitled “History of the Insects of Europe, drawn from Nature, and explained, by Maria Sibylla Merian.” It included a treatise on the generation and metamorphoses of insects, and the plants on which they feed. Her pictures were not only executed with fidelity, but each insect appeared in its first state with the most pleasing accompaniments. With those metamorphosed from the chrysalis or nymph to the fly or butterfly, were presented the plants and flowers they loved, all correctly and tastefully delineated.
Even after the appearance of her work, in 1705, the persevering artist continued her studies in natural history, in which she was joined by both her daughters, whom she had educated to pursuits of art. Dorothea, the youngest, had accompanied her to Surinam, while the eldest, Joanna Maria Helena, came afterward with her husband, a merchant of Amsterdam, to assist her mother in collecting and painting specimens. It was the mother’s intention to publish the pictures made by her daughters in an appendix to her own collected works; but her death, which occurred in January, 1717, prevented this, and the daughters afterward published the results of their labors in a separate volume.
This extraordinary woman, whose labors contributed so much to the improvement and embellishment of the natural history of insects, was little favored by gifts of beauty or personal grace. Her portrait shows hard and heavy-lined features. A curious headdress, made of folds of black stuff, rises high above the head, and inclines a little to the left. Short, light curls appear above a cambric ruffle, finishing a half-low corsage. She is undoubtedly entitled to a place among great artists.
The history of Madame Merian rounds off that of German female artists belonging to the seventeenth century with an exhibition of more than ordinary interest.