Maria Sibylla Merian was just another 17th-century European mom — capable, hardworking, talented, and able to juggle a household and rear kids while being underappreciated and overworked.
On top of that, she managed a successful career as an artist, botanist, naturalist, and entomologist. Merian was the first to document the metamorphosis process from caterpillar to butterfly. She discovered facts about plants and insects that were not previously known. Her observations helped dispel the widespread belief that insects spontaneously emerged from mud.
Her work preceded Charles Darwin by two centuries.
Merian went through her metamorphosis by leaving her husband. She took her daughter, moved to Amsterdam, and opened a shop. She captivated European audiences with her books of detailed descriptions and life-size paintings of familiar insects. Her meticulous observations laid the groundwork for the fields of entomology, animal behavior, and ecology.
Then in 1699, long before Darwin’s well-funded round-the-world expedition, Merian self-funded her pioneering entomologist trip. She sailed with her daughter 5,000 miles from the Netherlands to South America to study insects in the Suriname jungle. She was 52. The result was her magnum opus, “Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.”
Merian was the first to bring together insects and their habitats, including the food they ate, into a single ecological composition. Her work captivated a European audience that was fascinated with the exotic story she presented to them, while they had no issue with the gender of the person who painted it. Surprisingly, at the turn of the 18th century, nobody objected.
Later, during the Victorian era, her drawing of a tarantula devouring a hummingbird was criticized as impossible and unladylike. Other drawings were questioned, leading to her being discredited. Eventually, her findings were vindicated, including by the distinguished Henry Walter Bates, one of the most impressive of all Victorian scientists and a friend of Darwin’s. Bates included her work in his 1863 book, “The Naturalist on the River Amazons.”
Merian’s drawing of the peacock flower included a detailed account of the injustices of slavery, and mentioned how enslaved women told her about the plant’s abortive properties. The enslaved, who were treated badly by their Dutch masters, used the seeds to abort their children so they would not become slaves like themselves.
Londa Schiebinger, a professor of the history of science at Stanford University, called this passage astounding. Merian reported this detail that directly acknowledged the injustices of slavery and colonialism, suggesting that a medicine could be a tool to allow women to control their own reproductive destinies. “It’s particularly striking centuries later when these issues are still prominent in public discussions about social justice and women’s rights,” Schiebinger said.
Today, pioneering women of the sciences are re-emerging. In recent years, feminists, historians, and artists have all praised Merian’s tenacity, talent, and inspirational artistic compositions. Three hundred years after her death, Merian will be celebrated at an international symposium in Amsterdam this June. Commemorating her groundbreaking work, “Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium” was republished.
“She was ahead of her time,” Dr. Etheridge said. Merian’s accomplishments against amazing odds inspire good over convention.
