For the Benefit of Naturalists

Chapter 4 For the Benefit of Naturalists The 1679 Raupen book was Maria Sibylla Merian’s first scientific publication, but far from her last. Tracing the history of her full body of work is useful in understanding her influence on subsequent biological inquiry and on her rep- utation as a naturalist. The first Raupen volume set the pattern for her later books, and in 1683, she published a second caterpillar book.1 Merian’s research on insects continued for almost three more decades after the appearance of the second Raupen volume, but publication of the third volume on European insects was put on hold until it was published in Dutch in 1717.2 In the interim, she researched and wrote about Neotropical insects and plants, and in 1705 she published her best known work, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.3 In the years between the Surinam volume and her 1717 Rupsen book, the earlier German caterpillar books were translated and published in Dutch. In the 18th century, all of Merian’s books were published in a variety of editions in Dutch, Latin and French. This somewhat complex history is noteworthy, because edi- torial decisions by Merian and by publishers who controlled her material after her death had a lasting effect on how she has been perceived as a scientist. The 1683 Raupen book contained additional metamorphoses that Merian studied before moving from Nuremberg. Although this second volume was similar in format to the first caterpillar book, there are differences in how she arranged the content. As she states in the preface to the second volume, “more than a hundred transformations can be found here …,” and she tells readers that for their convenience, she has combined insects that eat the same plant into a single plate. She also explains that she has added “graceful flowers in- stead of the various foods [plants] which have already appeared several times in my [1679] book.” The second Raupen book does have more insects depicted than the first volume and the expanded plant array includes fewer fruit trees. Some of the flowers depicted in the 1683 volume would have been popular in gardens at the time, but others are more humble meadow plants. As in the first volume, she was careful to denote the food plants of her caterpillar subjects in the text, even if she posed the insects on a different species. 1 Merian, 1683. Raupen. 2 Merian, 1717. Rupsen. 3 Merian, Metamorphosis. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004284807_005 For the Benefit of Naturalists 109 The focus of the present book is on Merian’s early investigations into European insects, but no study of her work is complete without at least a brief discussion of Metamorphosis.4 Intrigued by the tropical moths and butterflies from the Americas that she saw in the collections of others, she and her young- est daughter, Dorothea Maria, set out for Surinam in 1699. She worked there for almost two years before becoming seriously ill and returning to Amsterdam. That city had been her home since 1691, when she left the Labadist community in Friesland. The contents as well as the physical size of the Surinam volume departed dramatically from the Raupen books, as befitted the subject. As with all of her insect images, the tropical species featured in Metamorphosis were reproduced as life-size, requiring much bigger plates to accommodate the enormous wingspan of the largest insects,5 and to present a fuller picture of the tropical plants on which they lived. Merian understood that her audience would be intrigued by the exotic plants, and she addressed these in almost as much detail as she did the insects. The vast array of tropical insects were strangers to her when she arrived in the hot, humid forests of Surinam, and she had a very short time in which to learn about the life cycles of dozens of new species described in her book. It is ironic that although Metamorphosis is con- sidered her magnum opus, the biology of insects is more accurately described in the less celebrated Raupen books.6 Metamorphosis initially was published in Dutch and Latin, and later in French. The extraordinary visual presentation of striking plants and animals in the Surinam book brought a new surge of fame to Merian, and ultimately led to further dissemination of the contents of her earlier work. Twelve years after the publication of Metamorphosis and shortly after her death, Merian’s final caterpillar book was published by her daughter, Dorothea Maria.7 This third book on European insects was a quarto volume similar in format to the earlier Raupen books, but was published in Dutch. Merian inves- tigated some of the insects featured in the 1717 Rupsen book while she was still living in Nuremberg; others were observed while she was living in Friesland or later in Amsterdam. As will be described below, she had earlier published 4 Merian, Metamorphosis. The history of this, her best-known work, has been well docu- mented elsewhere. See for example Merian, Van Delft, and Mulder, Merian Metamorphosis; Merian and Wettengl, Maria Sibylla Merian; Merian, Maria Sibylla, Elizabeth Rücker, and William T. Stearn. 1980–1982. Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. London: Prion. 5 Thysania agrippina, the white witch moth in Plate 20 of Metamorphosis, can have a wingspan of 30 cm (almost 12 inches). 6 Etheridge, Kay. 2016. The biology of Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium. In: Merian, Van Delft, and Mulder, Merian Metamorphosis: 29–39. 7 Merian, 1717 Rupsen..

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