
Maria Sibylla Merian (born 1647 in Frankfurt/Main) began studying insects early in her life, particularly the life cycle of caterpillars and butterflies and how the transformation happens. And here is what is really impressive. In 1699 the city of Amsterdam sponsored Merian to travel to Surinam with her daughter, Dorothea Maria. (Notice that Maria Sibylla was 52 when she traveled to South America. I have always loved antique botanical illustration. And I particularly like the ones with dark background:
I might replace my “Curiosity” prints with some of the “Auslaendische Kulturpflanzen” in my bathroom…
And then, there is Mary Delaney, born in 1700 who was very skilled at needlework and started to create floral paper collages in the 1770s when she was just over 70 years old. (Well there seems to be still hope for me.) She used mainly colored paper, which she pasted on black paper. Sometimes she supplemented with water color when she did not find a particular shade, but it seems that it was rather an exception.
Copyright (c) British Museum
Here is the source of the two images of the vintage plates “Auslaendischen Kulturpflanzen”:
Vintage Printables (a great resource with all royalty free images)
Enjoy!
Vintage Printables (a great resource with all royalty free images)
Enjoy!