Maria Sibylla Merian turns 366 — Google celebrates by letting insects invade its logo
Wikimedia Commons Today marks the 366th birthday of naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian who helped lay the foundation of taxonomy.
Maria Sibylla Merian changed the insect world with her illustrations — and she started when she was just 13.
Her youthful passion grew into a study of insects that would centuries later become the foundation for taxonomy.
Instead of studying lifeless preserved insects pressed in books, which was the common practice in the 1600s, Merian preferred watching a caterpillar evolve into a butterfly in its natural habitat. She began cataloguing the life cycles of plants and insects through her artwork — one of the first women to do so.
German currency honoured her with a portrait on the 500DM bill, U.S. postage stamps displayed her artwork in a 1997 collection, and now Google is celebrating her 366th birthday with a Doodle.
“At the beginning, I started with silk worms in my home town of
Frankfurt. I realized that other caterpillars produced beautiful
butterflies or moths, and that silk worms did the same,” Merian wrote
about her youthful observations in Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. “This led me to collect all the caterpillars I could find in order to see how they changed.”
Her passion, paired with the illustrative skills her painter-stepfather taught her, turned into her lifelong study.
Merian also observed the specific food intake of the different species, illustrating the type of flower or plant they ate alongside the insect.
After studying exotic insects from Surinam, a Dutch colony, in a local museum, she convinced the government to fund an expedition for her. The result was a book she published in 1705, which was the first time tropical insects were painted from real life.
Six years later, Merian suffered a stroke, but she continued to catalogue.
One of her two daughters compiled her works, dedicating it to “loving memories of mother Maria Sibylla Merian.”
Tsar Peter the Great personally purchased her work just a few days before Merian died as a pauper in 1717. After his death, the works were presented to the Russian Academy of Sciences, where they reside today.
Her youthful passion grew into a study of insects that would centuries later become the foundation for taxonomy.
Instead of studying lifeless preserved insects pressed in books, which was the common practice in the 1600s, Merian preferred watching a caterpillar evolve into a butterfly in its natural habitat. She began cataloguing the life cycles of plants and insects through her artwork — one of the first women to do so.
German currency honoured her with a portrait on the 500DM bill, U.S. postage stamps displayed her artwork in a 1997 collection, and now Google is celebrating her 366th birthday with a Doodle.
Wikimedia Commons Illustration of a Caiman crocodilus and an Anilius scytale by Maria Sibylla Merian.
Her passion, paired with the illustrative skills her painter-stepfather taught her, turned into her lifelong study.
Merian also observed the specific food intake of the different species, illustrating the type of flower or plant they ate alongside the insect.
After studying exotic insects from Surinam, a Dutch colony, in a local museum, she convinced the government to fund an expedition for her. The result was a book she published in 1705, which was the first time tropical insects were painted from real life.
Screengrab
One of her two daughters compiled her works, dedicating it to “loving memories of mother Maria Sibylla Merian.”
Tsar Peter the Great personally purchased her work just a few days before Merian died as a pauper in 1717. After his death, the works were presented to the Russian Academy of Sciences, where they reside today.
Labels: Bioscience, Nature, Science
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