Maria Sibylla Merian (aka Maria Sibylla Graff)
(1647–1717)
“Plate VII:
Prunier fleuri” (Flowering Plum, caterpillar and butterfly), 1679–1683,
published as plate 7 in Merian’s “De europische Insecten” (aka “Der Raupen
wunderbare Verwandelung, und sonderbare Blumennahrung” [The Wondrous
Transformation of Caterpillars and their Strange Diet of Flowers]) editions from
1679/83 until 1730. The page format of this impression suggests that his
impression is from the earlier edition as in the final 1730 edition the prints
are clustered four to a page and the title text is erased (see an online copy
of the 1730 edition with the publication details at archive.org https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008530400/page/n12).
Engraving on
laid paper, coloured by hand in watercolour (presumably at the time of
publication) with full margins as published and backed with a support sheet.
Size: (sheet)
23.4 x 16.8 cm; (plate) 14.8 x 11 cm.
Inscribed on
plate: (upper right corner) “VII”; (lower centre) “Prunier fleuri.”
Lifetime
impression (based on the format of the page which suggests that it is from one
of the first editions).
Regarding the
edition size, Florence F.J.M. Pieters & Diny Winthagen (1999) in “Maria
Sibylla Merian, naturalist and artist (1647-1717): a commemoration on the
occasion of the 350th anniversity of her birth” (“Archives of Natural History”,
26 [1]) advise:
“… her books
were very rare, editions probably not exceeding 100 copies, and consequently
very expensive for scientists — especially the coloured copies: the subscription
prices of a coloured versus an uncoloured copy of her book on Surinam insects were
45 and 15 Dutch guilders” (p. 10). Note that “the pay of a Dutch ocean-going
sailor came to 9 guilders a month during the entire seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries” (ibid). [https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/956970/80552_327018.pdf]).
Condition: crisp,
near faultless and very well preserved impression (i.e. there are no tears,
holes, folds, abrasions, significant stains or foxing), laid upon an archival
support sheet of millennium quality washi paper.
I am selling
this rare engraving by the first woman artist-naturalist to publish her
findings that catapillars—described in Merian’s day one of the "beasts of
the devil"—were not "’born of mud’ by spontaneous generation” (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Sibylla_Merian),
but that they were a stage in the metamorphoses of the butterfly, for the total
cost of AU$257 (currently US$173.87/EUR156.92/GBP143.06 at the time of this
listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world (but not, of
course, any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries).
If you are
interested in purchasing this lifetime impression of one of the first coloured
botanical studies ever published—mindful that the colours were chosen for their
accuracy and that the artist recorded the plants from which pigments could be
derived at a time when the guild system disallowed women from painting in oils (see
Wikipedia about this artist)—please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com)
and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.
This print has been sold
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