Miraculous transformations

From the series Clara and Crawly creatures

Banana, butterfly (Caligo Teucer Teucer) and lizard (Cnemidophorus Lemniscatus), Maria Sibylla Merian, 1702-1703

In June 1699, Maria Sibylla Merian set sail from the Netherlands to Suriname, accompanied by her youngest daughter Dorothea Maria. Her goal was to study and make drawings of the metamorphic stages of Surinamese insects. Two years later, she returned and self-published her Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium.

Outcasts of creation

Associated with the devil, sin and death

A new way of seeing

Renaissance artists paint crawly creatures

Table ornament Table ornament

Uniting art and nature

Crawly creatures in the Kunstkammer (‘art chamber’)

The small print in the book of nature

Crawly creatures and God’s creation

Miraculous transformations

Maria Sibylla Merian studies Surinamese insects

Sottobosco

Crawly creatures get their own genre