The Beautifully Strange Insects of Maria Sibylla Merian

by Stephen J. Gertz

A copy of  Maria Sibylla Merian's Surinaamsche Insecten (The Insects of Surinam, Amsterdam 1730), "One of the best old scientific works, and one of the most magnificently illustrated books ever created" (Rucker), was offered at Ketterer Kunst Auktions in Hamburg, November 21, 2011. The fourth edition (third in Dutch), it sold for $51,840. On June 8, 2011, at Christie's, a copy of the first edition sold for $238,355 (incl. buyer's premium).

Originally written in Latin and published in Amsterdam in 1705 as Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, the city of Amsterdam had sponsored Merian to travel to Surinam along with her younger daughter, Dorothea Maria, in 1699. Before departing, she wrote:

"In Holland, I noted with much astonishment what beautiful animals came from the East and West Indies. I was blessed with having been able to look at both the expensive collection of Doctor Nicolaas Witsen, mayor of Amsterdam and director of the East Indies society, and that of Mr. Jonas Witsen, secretary of Amsterdam. Moreover I also saw the collections of Mr. Fredericus Ruysch, doctor of medicine and professor of anatomy and botany, Mr. Livinus Vincent, and many other people. In these collections I had found innumerable other insects, but finally if here their origin and their reproduction is unknown, it begs the question as to how they transform, starting from caterpillars and chrysalises and so on. All this has, at the same time, led me to undertake a long dreamed of journey to Surinam" (From the Foreword to Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium).

"Merian's artistic and scientific interests outgrew Amsterdam's supply of exotic plants and animals. In 1699, after selling most of her belongings, she set sail for the Dutch colony of Suriname with her younger daughter, Dorothea Maria. Maria Sibylla was 52, Dorothea Maria 21.

"The jungles of South America were teeming with live specimens, which Merian studied for her most important publication, The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname (known as The Insects of Suriname). Merian's experiences in the city of Paramaribo are expressed in her accounts of vibrant butterflies, voracious caterpillars and ants, exotic fruits and vegetables, menacing reptiles, and treacherous explorations into the jungle. Her observations about the local climate, the use of plants and animals, and the Dutch colonists' treatment of slaves provide some of the earliest accounts of life in Suriname" (Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science).

Merian worked in Surinam (later the French, Dutch and British Guianas) for two years, traveling around the colony and sketching local animals and plants. In 1701 malaria forced her to return to  the Netherlands.

"Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), [was] an early German naturalist who exemplified the diy approach to observation, documentation, and dissemination of new knowledge in 17th- and 18th-century Europe. Individuals at this time sought to document the worlds that were slipping away as quickly as they were being 'discovered,' and the talented Maria Sibylla Merian was one of these self-taught scholars.

"The daughter of one printer and eventual wife of another, Maria grew up surrounded by the stimulating world of scholarship, and all her life worked to satisfy her own intellectual curiosities concerning the metamorphosis of butterflies and moths. The methods that she used - keeping caterpillars in boxes, feeding and watching each change, and documenting her observations in word and images–resulted in studies that were unique in the early field of natural history. Her illustrations of both plants and insect life were reproduced in fine engravings in the books that she wrote and printed. And as an older lady, she even traveled to Surinam in search of undiscovered species that she could collect, study, and write about" (Jessica Pigza, The Talented and Brave Ms. Merian).

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Merian, M[aria]. S[ibylla]. Over de voortteeling en wonderbaerlyke veranderingen der Surinaamsche insecten: waar in de Surinaamsche rupsen en wormen, met alle derzelver veranderingen, naar het leeven afgebeelt en beschreeven worden ... Amsterdam, J. F. Bernard 1730. Fourth edition, the third with Dutch text, of the great work on Surinam insects by Merian, edited by Bernard. Large folio. 51 pp with engraved title-vignette and seventy-two copperplate engravings by J. Mulder and J. P. Sluyter, all finely colored by a contemporary hand. Contemporary full calf with floral gilt spine, boards with gilt fillet, corner florets and floral vignette in center.

Nissen 1341. Rücker S. 46ff. Horn/Schenkling 14992.  Hunt 484.

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Images courtesy of Ketterer Kunst, with our thanks.
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May Flowers Bloom In Cornell Exhibits

By Nancy Mattoon

Japanese Horicultural Catalog,
Iris Kaempferi,

Yoshinoen-Garden, no date, Tokyo.

(All Images Courtesy Of Cornell University Libraries.)

Now that Spring has finally sprung, Cornell University Library offers up two related online exhibits to inspire gardeners, and those who simply love flowers and plants. The first exhibit centers on the life of Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954), described as "Botanist, horticulturalist, plant breeder, traveler and plant explorer, outstanding teacher, astute and successful administrator, lobbyist, rural sociologist, prolific writer and superb editor, environmentalist, philosopher, photographer, poet, and visionary." The second show centers on the collection of seed catalogs he began, which was curated for decades by his daughter, Ethel Zoe Bailey.

Ethel Zoe Bailey and Liberty Hyde Bailey
On A Plant Collecting
Expedition in Panama, 1931.

Liberty Hyde Bailey: A Man For All Seasons highlights the myriad accomplishments of the founder of Cornell University's College of Agriculture. Raised as a Michigan farm boy, Liberty Hyde Bailey graduated from the Michigan Agricultural College with a degree in botany. After working with the renowned botanist Asa Gray at Harvard, he returned to Michigan to teach horticulture and landscape gardening. Bailey began his career at Cornell as chair of Practical and Experimental Horticulture in 1888. In 1904, he secured funding for the new College of Agriculture and was the dean of that school for the next decade. Four years later, president Theodore Roosevelt appointed him Chairman of The National Commission on Country Life.

Manual of Everything for the Garden,

Peter Henderson & Co., New York, 1902.

Bailey retired from Cornell in 1913, but continued his scientific, practical, and philosophical pursuits, and made his home in Ithaca for the rest of his life. He was the editor of The Cyclopedia of American Agriculture (1907-09), the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture (1900-02), and of a series of manuals for students on the subjects of agricultural science and gardening. He was the founding editor of the journals Country Life in America and the Cornell Countryman. Bailey essentially dominated the field of American horticultural literature in the early decades of the 20th century, publishing 65 books and editing hundreds more, and writing at least 1,400 journal articles and scientific treatises. He even published a volume of pastoral poetry. He was instrumental in starting agricultural extension services, the 4-H movement, and the nature study movement, and is considered the father of rural sociology and journalism.

Vick's Garden and Floral Guide,

James Vick's Sons,

Rochester, New York, 1904.

The second exhibit, Mail Order Gardens, is based on materials from the Ethel Z. Bailey Horticultural Catalogue Collection. According to the exhibit, "Shortly after Liberty Hyde Bailey came to Cornell in 1888, he requested catalogs from seed and plant dealers throughout the world. These were to furnish a record of plant introductions, keep up with trends in the business of horticulture, document the sources of all available plants and seeds and to serve as a reference for Bailey's writings." The collection now numbers over 136,000 items, which have been used by researchers in the fields of economics, statistics, history, botany, horticulture, and gardening, to name just a few. The collection has been particularly valuable to students of historic gardens, and is considered one of the finest sources of information on seeds and plants in the United States.

Vilmorin-Andrieux & Cie.,
Printemps, Paris, 1898.

The catalogue collection is just a small part of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Hortorium, created in 1935 when Bailey donated his library, herbarium, and horticultural catalogs to Cornell. Although the seed catalogue collection was begun by Bailey, it is named for his daughter, Ethel Zoe, who was "for many years his able assistant and collaborator." Ms. Bailey curated the catalog collection for an astounding seven decades, from 1913 until her death in 1983 at the age of 93. She graduated from Smith College in 1911 with a degree in zoology, and was "a respected botanist in her own right."

Manual of Everything for the Garden,
Peter Henderson & Co., New York, 1887.

Ethel Zoe Bailey was a co-author of Hortus, considered "the standard reference for plants cultivated in the United States and Canada," and edited the first eight volumes of Gentes Herbarum. Additionally, she accompanied her father on his botanical expeditions to China, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, and assisted him with the researching, editing, and writing of many of his most important works, including Bailey's Manual of Cultivated Plants and The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. The seed catalogue collection, which bears her name, reflects "cultural and social values, alterations in language, demographics, and changing technologies, both in agriculture and printing," as well as being the source of many spectacularly beautiful images.
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The 19th C. British Hunter Who Just Said No to Hunting

by Stephen J. Gertz

One day in 1741, British naturalist and litterateur Gilbert White (1720-1793) had a revelation. An outdoorsman since childhood, he had spent his school years exploring southern and central England and, in hunting, found a sense of the natural world as an encounter filled  with mystery and beauty. But this day was different.

"...During the routine of ‘field-diversions’ White experienced an event that was to shape his future and eventually lead to the single work for which he is so well known, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne (1789).

"The occasion can be dated precisely to 21 September 1741: up early, and out hunting for partridge, White ‘found the stubbles and clover-grounds matted all over with [such] a thick coat of cobweb’ that his dogs were ‘so blinded and hoodwinked that they could not proceed’; and further, the ‘perfect flakes or rags’ (of gossamer—for that is what White describes in Selborne, Barrington, letter 23) ‘hung in the trees and hedges so thick, that a diligent person … might have gathered baskets full.' The immediate outcome of this singular experience was a forced return home, during which he mused on ‘the oddness of the occurrence.'

"But a deeper magic was at work and White's devotion to hunting received a considerable shock. Gratuitous killing (even for sport), he came to realize, was alien to the purposes of Providence, and although he continued to shoot for the table and, later, to provide specimens for identification and dissection, the thrill of the chase and the deceit of the stalk were to be replaced in his maturity by a spirit of enquiry and the outcomes of scientific curiosity..." (Oxford DNB).

For the following forty years until his death in 1793 White kept a near-daily diary of his gardening activities, garden produce, culinary satisfaction, and of natural phenomena he encountered. With the help of his nephew Benjamin White, proprietor of London shop purveying natural history books, he published his life's work, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, a compilation of forty-four of his letters to Thomas Pennant, the leading British zoologist of the day, and sixty-six letters to the Hon. Daines Barrington, an English barrister and another Fellow of the Royal Society, on November 1, 1788 (but dated 1789; under contemporary British law volumes available in the final months of the year were permitted to carry the date of the following year).

With this, his major work, published, White was elevated to fame. The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, enthusiastically reviewed in the Gentleman's Magazine and in The Topographer, brought White well-deserved acclaim. His greatest achievements  were, arguably, the examples he set for his contemporaries and to posterity as a predator of nature's fauna transformed to its protector and thus redeemed in the eyes of God and Creation, and as a proto-ecologist: Hunting, for anything other than providing food for the dining table, is immoral, and all plants and animals in a prescribed area form an environmental community within which each is dependent upon the other for survival.

The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne has been continuously in print for 222 years since its initial publication, with 300 editions issued through 2007.
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WHITE, Gilbert.  The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, in the County of Southampton: With Engravings, and an Appendix. London: Printed by T. Bensley for B. White and Son, 1789.

First edition, complete with errata leaf. Quarto. (9 7/8 x 7 1/2 in; 253 x 190 mm). v, [1], 468, [12, Index], [1, errata], [1, blank] pp. Page 292 misnumbered 262, and pages 441-442 omitted from pagination. Folding engraved frontispiece, engraved title vignette, and six engraved plates (one folding).

Martin 90. Rothschild 2550. Grolier English 62 .

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Images courtesy of David Brass Rare Books, with our thanks.

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A Rose By Any Other Name...Might Be Extinct

By Nancy Mattoon

Tulipa XXV: Plate 146,
Artist: Unidentified.
TREW, C.J.
Hortus Nitidissimis omnem per annum superbiens floribus sive amoenissimorum Florum Imagines.... Der das ganze Jahr hindurch im schönsten Flor stehende Blumengarten, oder Abbildungen der lieblichsten Blumen... herausgegeben von Johann Michael Seligmann.
Nürnberg, Auf Kosten der Seligmännischen Erben/ Ludwig Wirsing, [1750-] 1772-1786.
(All Images Courtesy of Royal Botanic Garden Library.)

One in five of the world's plant species is in danger of extinction. That's the frightening conclusion of a study released September 28, 2010, and sponsored in part by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. The study establishes a major baseline for plant conservation and is the first time that the true extent of the threat to the world's estimated 380,000 plant species has been documented. The work relied heavily on the vast repository of botanical information held in Kew Gardens' Herbarium, Library, Art and Archives, which includes some eight million preserved plant and fungal specimens.

Narcissus IV: Plate 124,
Artist:Dietzschin, B.R.

Kew Garden's Director, Professor Stephen Hopper, says: "This study confirms what we already suspected, that plants are under threat and the main cause is human induced habitat loss. We cannot sit back and watch plant species disappear – plants are the basis of all life on earth, providing clean air, water, food and fuel. All animal and bird life depends on them and so do we."

Lilio-Narcissus II: Plate 18,
Artist: Ehret, G.D.

A look at the Kew Garden's website reminds us of another compelling reason plant life must be protected: the infinite variety of botanical species is a major source of the earth's natural beauty. The Garden's extensive library documents the history of horticultural and botanical literature, with more than 750,000 volumes, and more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. For centuries, humankind has documented the fragile and short lives of plants and flowers for scientific study. Now it seems these rare books are in danger of becoming a catalog of paradise lost.

Martagon I: Plate 26,
Artist: Ehret, G.D.

One of the highlights of the Kew Gardens website is an online exhibition of a "complete virtual copy" of Hortus Nitidissimis Omnem Per Annum Superbiens Floribus Sive Amoenissimorum Florum Imagines (1772-1786). This great florilegium combines the scientific observations of doctor and amateur horticulturalist Christoph Jacob Trew with 180 full color plates by some of the finest botanical artists of the period, including the peerless Georg Dionysius Ehret. Complete copies of this book are exceedingly rare, so the Kew Library digitized pages from volumes held in three separate libraries to create an exhibit of an imaginary perfect text.

Iris III: Plate 28,
Artist: Ehret, G.D.

This online tour of "a year in a brilliant garden of exquisite flowers represented in beautiful pictures," is a ravishing and colorful exploration of the most sumptuous blossoms of Europe. Tulips, hyacinths, ranunculi, carnations, roses, lilies and more are all frozen in time at the height of their glory in this splendid exhibit.

Rosa I: Plate 17,

Artist: Ehret, G.D.

English art critic Sir Sacheverell Sitwell wrote of the great flower books, including the Hortus, in 1956: "Locked away in museums, and to a lesser extent in private libraries, are beautiful and quite unknown albums of flower drawings that are in prison, as it were, and only visited at rare intervals by a mere handful of amateurs and students. This hiding away and seclusion of original flower drawings which is, apparently, insurmountable and an obstacle to the general appreciation which will never be overcome."

Corona Imperialis I: Plate 40,
Artist: Keller, I.C.

Sitwell could not have envisioned the advent of the Internet and digitization, which have miraculously released these "imprisoned" books to the world. But it would have been equally impossible for him to imagine a world where the plants depicted in these illustrations would themselves cease to exist. On a planet where, according to the Kew study, "Plants are more threatened than birds, as threatened as mammals and less threatened than amphibians or corals," attention must be paid before the beauty of volumes like the Hortus becomes no more than a remembrance of things past.
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Reading The Landscape At The Sterling Morton Library

Georg Dionysius Ehret. From The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, by Mark Catesby, 1771, vol. 2. Hand-colored engraving.
(All Images Courtesy Of The Sterling Morton Library.)

Summertime is almost here, and the living should be easy. But if you want your plants to grow as high as the cotton in Porgy and Bess, early summer is also the time to take Candide's advice to tend your own garden. The Sterling Morton Library, located at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, IL., has created a virtual exhibit so beautiful that even those in the grip of early midsummer malaise will be inspired to get out the gardening gloves.

Barbara Regina Dietzsch. Tulipa (parrot), 1750-1759. Gouache.

The online exhibit, Flora! Illuminated is a companion to an in-house show featuring "spectacular plant images" from the library's rare book and art collections, accompanied by "snippets of song lyrics, poetry, and prose." The Sterling Morton Library specializes in botany, horticulture, botanical art, forestry, landscape design and architecture, and natural history. Among its holdings are 5,000 rare books dating back to 1482, and 800 journal titles beginning as early as 1793. Also housed at the library is an art collection of 12,000 engravings, lithographs, watercolors, pen and ink drawings, and landscape renderings by significant Midwestern prairie school designers. The Sterling Morton Library is also the archive for the Morton Arboretum.

Peter Henderson and Company. Nursery Catalog, 1889. Lithograph.

The Morton Arboretum, covering 1,700 acres, is located 25 miles west of Chicago. It was established in 1922 by Joy Morton, who earned millions by founding The Morton Salt Company. (A love of nature ran in the family: Joy Morton's father, Julius Sterling Morton, was instrumental in the creation of Arbor Day. The Morton Family's motto was "Plant Trees.") Joy Morton's 700 acre estate was the seedling from which Arboretum's forest of 4,100 species of trees, shrubs, and woody plants grew-- and also its 10 gardens and the Schulenberg Prairie, one of the oldest and largest replanted prairies in the United States. The initial book collection of The Sterling Morton Library consisted of works transferred from the private library at Jay Morton's mansion, Thornhill.

Matthaeus Merian. Narcissus varieties, from Viridarium reformatum… by D. Mich. Bernh. Valentini, 1719. Hand-colored line engraving.

Among the Morton Arboretum's gardens are a half-acre fragrance garden hosting 95 sweet-smelling species; an herb garden featuring plants used for flavoring food, curing illnesses, relieving the symptoms of ailments, and manufacturing products like soaps, perfumes, and insect repellents; and a one-acre maze garden, which may be closed during severe weather to prevent visitors from ending up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. For Booktryst's purposes however, no garden is more important than The May T. Watts Reading Garden.

The May T. Watts Reading Garden At The Morton Arboretum.

There is good reading on the land, first-hand reading involving no symbols. The records are written in forests, in fencerows, in bogs, in playgrounds, in pastures, in gardens, in canyons, in tree rings. The records were made by sun and shade, by wind, rain, and fire, by time; and by animals. As we read what is written on the land, finding accounts of the past, predictions of the future, and comments on the present, we discover there are many interwoven strands to each story... -May Theilgaard Watts, preface to Reading the Landscape: An Adventure In Ecology, 1957.

Lilian Snelling. Lilium centifolum, 1933 Hand-colored zincograph.

Reading the landscape like a book, and writing poetically of its flora and fauna. That is the legacy of May Theilgaard Watts (1893-1975): ecologist, educator, naturalist, author, illustrator, poet, artist and visionary. She was the first staff naturalist at the Morton Arboretum, teaching classes on plant identification and in the then new field of "ecology." A strikingly tall and slender Dane, with a long braid pinned atop her head like a crown, she reminded one former pupil of "a Viking princess." She published two standard texts used for decades by teachers of landform geography, and dozens of plant identification books filled with her own pen and ink illustrations. (She had a degree in Botany from the University of Chicago, but had also studied drawing at The Art Institute of Chicago.)

Anne Ophelia Todd Dowden. Rhododendron 'Holden'. 1974. Reproduction of original watercolor.

In a perfect blend of her many talents, in 1963 May T. Watts was asked to design a "reading garden" next to the Sterling Morton Library. This small and secluded garden was designed to be the perfect spot for reading a favorite book, or for perusing one borrowed from the adjacent library. Working alongside librarian Mary Moulton, the Sterling Morton Library's first librarian, Ms. Watts chose plants that would flourish despite the Arboretum's harsh winters and hot, sticky summers, and were also "intriguing and unusual." One of those plants, a flowering lily-like species with white-edged green leaves, was named Hosta May T. Watts, in her honor.

Walter Crane. From A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden, 1899. Color relief print.

Current Reference Librarian and Special Projects Cataloger Nancy Faller is bringing the library that has been called "The Jewel Of Lisle" into the digital age. She writes the Sterling Morton Library's blog, has just created its first Facebook page, and also co-curated (along with Rita Hassert, Technical Services Librarian, and Arlene Widrevitz, Assistant in the Rare Print Collection) both of the marvelous Flora! Illuminated exhibits: the in-house and the online. When you check out the online exhibit, be sure to investigate some of the hyperlinks included, as they lead the reader on many fascinating botanical adventures. Almost enough to make the virtual visitor quit longing to see the Illinois arboretum in person, but not quite... But hang on Voltaire, there's always your own garden to tend.

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