The Scientific Vision of Women

As a child, Maria Merian was surrounded by business owners, printers and artists, but beginning as early as age 13, her primary passion was for entomology (the study of insects). Maria was encouraged to draw by her stepfather, the painter Jacob Marrell, but as a woman the law allowed her to paint only in watercolor, not oil.

Many of Merian’s early works were botanical, but her most famous works are on insects. Merian was an educator and an entrepreneur and was able to independently finance her 1699 voyage to Suriname to document entomological species with her daughter. Before her death in 1717 she had documented the life cycle of 186 different insect species.

Erucarum Ortus (shown above) is a reworking and Latin translation (by her daughter Dorothea) of Merian’s seminal work Der raupen wunderbare verwandlung [The caterpillar’s wonderful transformation]. This copy includes many counterproofs, printed from a wet impression, to create a print that reflects the original drawing. The image on the right includes illustrations of the silkworm.

Merian notes in her journals that much of her research would not have been possible without the knowledge and assistance of indigenous enslaved people, especially those who endured terrible conditions in Suriname.

Label by Meg Brown