Final Collection Research- Fourth Idea

The fourth Idea that I want to research is about a butterfly. I search a several topic about it and I found Maria Sibylla Merian. Here some research that I do about her:

4. Maria Sibylla Merian

[endif]--Maria Sibylla Merian was a Swiss naturalist and artist living and working in the seventeenth century. She excelled in both works. ![endif]--

One of her principal claims to fame is that she is one of the first naturalists to have studied insects. She recorded and illustrated the life cycles of 186 insect species. Her evidence documented the nature of metamorphosis and contradicted contemporary ideas about how insects developed. She also discovered unknown animals and insects in the interior of Surinam. Her classification of butterflies and moths is still used today.

(https://www.google.com.sg/search?dcr=0&biw=1186&bih=656&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=0ExxWu_BFMHnvgS41regDw&q=Maria+Sibylla+Merian&oq=Maria+Sibylla+Merian&gs_l=psy-ab.3...3392747.3392747.0.3393001.1.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c.2.64.psy-ab..1.0.0....0.0y0-A5abGu8#imgrc=MTP7BZMd8_Sr3M:)

She also undertook scientific expeditions at a time when these were unusual and normally undertaken by men only.

She was born on April 2, 1647, in Frankfurt, Germany to a family of Swiss heritage

On 1651, when she 4 years old her stepfather encourages her to paint. She begins to paint images of insects and plants from specimens she had captured in 1660. Throughout her life, she kept specimens and studied their life cycles.

1675 became the important years for Maria because she publishes her first collection of engravings - Neues Blumenbuch - New book of flowers, and later in 1677 she publishes her second collection of engravings - Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung - The Caterpillar, Marvelous Transformation and Strange Floral Food. In this set of engravings she demonstrated the life cycle of the butterfly and how it transforms from a caterpillar to a butterfly. And her third book on 1680.

She lived in a home owned by Cornelis van Sommelsdijk, the governor of Surinam. This enabled her to begin her studies of the tropical flora and fauna of Surinam and South America.

After her mother died, she moved to Amsterdam and got sponsors. Merian went on a trip to Surinam with her daughter. She travels around the area now known as French, Dutch and British Guianas for two years. Her work involves sketching the plant life, animals, and insects.

Merian returns to Amsterdam due to malaria. She sells the specimens she has collected and begins her preparations to produce and publish a collection of engravings about the life in Surinam. Between 1701 and 1705 she makes 60 copperplate engravings to illustrate the stages of insect development, arranged around the cultivated and wild plants she had encountered on her travels.

Source:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maria-Sibylla-Merian

http://www.sibyllamerian.com/

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/the-woman-who-made-science-beautiful/424620/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/science/maria-sibylla-merian-metamorphosis-insectorum-surinamensium.html

Final Collection Research- Fourth Idea

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