In 2008 the Getty Museum celebrated an extraordinary family of female artists: 17th-century naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian and her daughters Johanna Helena and Dorothea Maria.
An exhibition, Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science, presented their vibrant natural history illustrations and still life paintings, which teemed with insect transformations that once challenged both artistic traditions and scientific beliefs. The show also offered visitors a sense of the women’s adventurousness. At age 52, for instance, Maria Sibylla sailed with her daughter Maria to the South American Dutch colony of Suriname to study and depict insect metamorphosis.
So that visitors could step into the shoes of a scientific illustrator, the exhibition included stations where children and adults alike could try their hand at coloring black-and-white reproductions. To better appreciate the women’s artistry—their illustrations and paintings were by no means literal renderings of dead nature—visitors could compare real animal specimens with the women’s depictions of them. The installation included 80 objects in all, including 28 illustrated books and 52 framed watercolors, as well as insects, spiders, snakes, and lizards.
Text panels and labels contextualized Merian’s achievements within the 17th-century worlds of art and science, demonstrating their importance. Illuminating Merian’s accomplishments for a general audience was one of the main reasons I wanted to curate this show. When she was born in 1647 in the German town of Frankfurt, scientific classification as we know it did not exist—worms and caterpillars were categorized together because they looked alike, and scholars still believed that flies spontaneously generated from rotting flesh and fruit, instead of from eggs. Merian, a woman without university training, was one of the first Europeans to document insect metamorphosis, all because she, as an artist, had a keen eye and a skillful hand.
Her quest for knowledge took her first to the Netherlands and then to Suriname. Her geographical and scientific explorations, artistic innovation, and great entrepreneurial efforts culminated in publishing three books in 25 years. Many different editions of these books were on display, several in cases at lower levels so that children could carefully study them in relation to actual specimens.
One of the many takeaways for visitors was how Merian never shied away from portraying the brutal cycle of life and death—perhaps because of her own fight for survival as a divorced woman and single mother. Another takeaway, especially for the aspiring artists and naturalists among the visitors, was that Merian’s hard work paid off. Her most important publication, The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname, appeared in Dutch and Latin editions from 1705 to 1730. The book shows 90 metamorphoses as well as “frogs, wonderful toads, lizards, snakes, spiders and termites displayed and explained, and all of them painted from life in actual size in [South] America.”
She writes compellingly of large, vibrant butterflies, voracious caterpillars and ants, exotic fruits and vegetables, menacing reptiles, and treacherous explorations into the tropical jungle. Her observations about the local climate, the use of various plants and animals for food, shelter, and medicine, and the Dutch colonists’ mistreatment of enslaved people provide some of the earliest accounts of life in Suriname.
One of the most important folios in the show was Plate 45 of the book: it exemplifies how Merian came to address much more than natural history. In the corresponding text for the life cycle of a tobacco hawk moth and its host plant, the peacock flower, she recounts, “Indians, who are not well treated by their Dutch masters, use the seeds of the peacock flower to abort their children, so that their children will not become slaves like they are.” Merian claimed that “the slaves told me this themselves.” Read in conjunction with the vibrant depiction of the peacock flower and tobacco hawk caterpillar, pupae, and moth, the account of mistreatment and abortion reminds us of the precarious cycle of human life in Suriname. Compared to later, male writers, who pronounced that this plant was used by “whores,” Merian’s description is remarkable for its anthropological neutrality.
A 1719 edition of The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname housed in the library of the Getty Research Institute (GRI) was the exhibition’s centerpiece. So that visitors might study Merian’s delicate linework and vibrant colors more closely at home, Getty curators produced a small gift book featuring details from the GRI’s edition. Getty gardeners, meanwhile, planted in pots in the Central Garden many of the flowers Merian depicted, bringing the imagery of flora to life for all visitors to the Getty Center. And a later Getty publication, a biography of Merian written for ages 10 and up, still enchants budding scientists and artists as well as their parents.
When Maria Sibylla Merian was eulogized by her friend, the poet Christoph Arnold, he remarked upon her courage and perseverance. “It is worthy of amazement that women also dare to write with intent what has given flocks of scholars so much to do!” It is indeed quite amazing what Merian accomplished as an artist, scientist, and entrepreneur. With her daughters’ continued diligence, Merian left her mark—nine butterflies were named after her.
Working together, the three women in their Amsterdam studio not only raised the artistic standards of natural history illustrations, but they also helped give birth to the field of entomology. As the exhibition’s curator, I was, and still am, proud to have been a part of celebrating these women and of Getty for being the first museum in the US to tell their story.
