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Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 164713 January 1717) was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Merian family, founders of one of Europe's largest publishing houses in the 17th century. Merian received her artistic training from her stepfather, Jacob Marrel, a student of the still life painter Georg Flegel. She remained in Frankfurt until 1670, relocating subsequently to Nuremberg, Wieuwerd (1685), where she stayed in a Labadist community till 1691, and Amsterdam. Merian published her first book of natural illustrations, titled ''Neues Blumenbuch'', in 1675 at age 28. In 1699, following eight years of painting and studying, and on the encouragement of Cornelis van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, the then-governor of the Dutch colony of Surinam, the city of Amsterdam awarded Merian a grant to travel to South America with her daughter Dorothea. Her trip, designed as a scientific expedition makes Merian perhaps the first person to "plan a journey rooted solely in science." After two years there, malaria forced her to return to Europe.〔〔 She then proceeded to publish her major work, ''Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium'', in 1705, for which she became famous. Because of her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, she is considered by David Attenborough〔Natural Curiosities film, BBC〕 to be among the most significant contributors to the field of entomology. She was a leading entomologist of her time and she discovered many new facts about insect life through her studies. ==Early life and early career== Maria Sibylla Merian was born on 2 April 1647 in Frankfurt, then a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, into the family of the Swiss engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian the Elder. Early on, she had access to many books about natural history. Her father died three years later, and in 1651 her mother married still life painter Jacob Marrel. Marrel encouraged Merian to draw and paint. While he lived mostly in Holland his pupil Abraham Mignon trained her. At the age of thirteen she painted her first images of insects and plants from specimens she had captured. Regarding her youth, in the foreword to ''Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium'', Merian wrote: "I spent my time investigating insects. At the beginning, I started with silk worms in my home town of Frankfurt. I realized that other caterpillars produced beautiful butterflies or moths, and that silkworms did the same. This led me to collect all the caterpillars I could find in order to see how they changed".〔Foreword from ''Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium'' (Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam)〕 In 1665 Merian married Marrel's apprentice, Johann Andreas Graff from Nuremberg; his father was a poet and director of the local high school, one of the leading schools in 17th century Germany. Two years later she had her first child, Johanna Helena, and the family moved to Nuremberg, her husband's home town. While living there, Merian continued painting, working on parchment and linen, and creating designs for embroidery. She also gave drawing lessons to unmarried daughters of wealthy families (her "''Jungferncompaney''", i.e. virgin group), which helped her family financially and increased its social standing. This provided her with access to the finest gardens, maintained by the wealthy and elite where she could continue collecting and documenting insects.〔 In 1679, she published her first work on insects which was a two-volume, illustrated book focusing on insect metamorphosis.〔 In 1681 she moved to Frankfurt am Main to live with her mother, after her stepfather died. In 1685 the family moved to Friesland where her half-brother Caspar Merian lived in a religious community. She split with her husband as well.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Maria Sibylla Merian」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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