Maria Sibylla Merian & dochters

Maria Sibylla Merian was the first to combine art and entomology. Better than anyone of her day, she was able to capture butterfly wings, furry caterpillars and pupae with emerging butterfly with a single hair of her brush. The British Museum in London and the Queen of England own many exquisite works - included in the book - by this German artist, born in the publishing city of Frankfurt in 1647. She lived for more than a quarter of a century in Amsterdam, where she died in 1717. Merian was famous and highly respected among artists and scientists alike. She was also a self-willed and adventurous lady. With her youngest daughter, she travelled to Suriname when she was fifty-three to observe and draw the indigenous insects, reptiles and amphibians.

For the first time author Ella Reitsma has attempted to separate the mother's signature from that of her two daughters, Johanna Helena and Dorothea Maria. Up until now all attention has focused on the mother, but research has established that both children also worked hard on the drawings in the studio. In Amsterdam, where mother and daughters settled in 1691, the collaboration was extremely close. The author sheds light on the intellectual circles in which Sibylla moved in Frankfurt, Nuremberg and Amsterdam as well as making various new connections. Work by new predecessors, never before published, is included in the book, as are newly discovered drawings and fresh biographical details that have come to light. The style of the book falls between art journalism and scholarship and is a highly accessible read.