Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). - photo 1
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). - photo 2
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). - photo 3
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). - photo 4
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). - photo 5

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717).

Lot 585
23.10.2022 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
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$ 63 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 820216
Lot 585 | Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717).
Estimate value
$ 50 000 – 80 000
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717).

De Europische Insecten, Naauwkeurig onderzogt, na 't leven geschildert, en in print gebragt door [And:] Over de Voortteeling en Wonderbaerlyke Veranderingen der Surinaamsche Insecten. Amsterdam: J. F. Bernard, 1730.

The works of the naturalist-artist Maria Sibylla Merian, whose “careful and deliberate portrayal of insect and host plant together had no precedent in scientific illustration” (Blunt and Stearn). Born in Frankfurt in 1647, Merian was the daughter of the engraver Matthäus Merian and step-daughter of the flower painter Jacob Marrel. She studied miniature painting and became interested in insects from an early age, capturing and drawing specimens from life. Merian’s scientific work is notable for its accurate observation of insect life and transformation in an age when spontaneous generation was still widely accepted. She published the first two parts of her work on the insects of Europe in 1679 and 1683, and was still immersed in preparing the third part for publication at her death almost 60 years later. The final volume would be completed by her daughters. The present 1730 edition was published by J.F. Bernard, who had purchased the plates of both the completed Raupenbuch and Merians’s very rare first work, Blumenbuch.



Merian's magnum opus is on the insects of Surinam, present here in its third edition from the same publisher. The product of a research trip to Surinam with her daughter Dorothea in 1699, this book is “easily the most magnificent work on insects so far produced ... her portrayals of living insects and other animals were imbued with a charm, a minuteness of observation and an artistic sensibility that had not previously been seen in a natural history book” (Dance). First published in 1705, an expanded second edition was printed 1719 with the addition of 12 plates after Merian's daughter Johanna; this is a reissue of that expanded edition. Hunt 483 (later French issue) and 484 (lacking frontispiece); Nissen 1342 and 1341.



Two volumes, folio (528 x 365mm). First work: half title, title page printed in red and black with hand-colored engraved vignettes on the title and final page; 184 hand-colored engravings on 47 sheets (a few spots, some light even toning). Second work: Hand-colored engraved frontispiece, hand-colored engraved vignetteon title, 72 full-page hand-colored plates (a few small marginal repairs, some light finger soiling, marginal worming to last few leaves, some offsetting affecting pl. 45). Contemporary calf (boards quite abraded and spine perishing, joints tender, endpapers renewed).







Provenance

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 14 January 1994, lot 51.

Acquired by Ann and Gordon Getty from the above.
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