Leningrad Watercolours

Description:

Multi-lingual text (German/English/French/Russian/Latin). Limited edition of 1,750 numbered copies - this copy no 308.

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was a German-born naturalist, artist and explorer. A pioneering entomologist, she was one of the first to study the metamorphoses of insects, preceded by the Dutch naturalists Johannes Goedaert (1620-1668) and Jan Swammerdam (1637-1680), and the first to observe the metamorphosis of tropical insects. In 1699 she undertook the arduous journey to Suriname with her daughter, Dorothea, to study insects in their natural habitat. The resulting publication, 'Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium' (The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname) made her world-famous. Through her accurate and realistic illustrations of insects and their food plants, she was the first to document these life stages for the public. Merian is now recognised as one of the best insect (and flower) scientific illustrators of her day - and indeed, of all time.

The year of Merian’s death, her paintings were purchased for Peter I, tsar of Russia. Her daughter, Dorothea Maria was subsequently summoned to St. Petersburg, where she worked as a scientific illustrator for the tsar and became the first woman to be employed by the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Condition

2 vols (Plates & Commentary), folio (475x370mm), vellum spines, marbled boards. Vol. 1 consists 50 loose facsimile colour plates of originals in the Library of the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg (formerly Leningrad), each with numbered text wrapper boxed in a foldover case with marbled boards, vellum spine and cloth edges. Vol. 2 is bound in matching qtr vellum marbled boards. Both volumes housed in orig. slipcase. Fine set.