Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science
August 31, 2008 at The Getty

Last summer I visited the the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City to see the collection of botanical paintings and drawings of plants and their pollinators by Maria Sibylla Merian. Now luckly Angelenos can see these on display at the Getty Museum.

Maria Sibylla Merian left Amsterdam and visited Suriname with her daughter in 1699. Merian not only illustrated the relationship between the caterpillar and the butterfly, but each of her paintings was a like a small narrative, showing the relationships--generous, violent, necessary-- between tropical plants and insects. The local natives and slave women found out about her interests, and started to teach her the local lore the magical and medicinal properties of the plants. She returned to Europe and published the book, "Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam". In this she recorded life histories of beetles and moths that were previously unknown to science....center to see the botanical paintings by Maria Sibylla Merian. Her pictures are now on display at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.