3-092-074 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Plantain with Metamorphosis of the Brigh-Line Brown-Eye, after 1679. In the text of the Caterpillar Book, published in 1679, Maria Sibylla Merian expressed her pleasure in the fact that, thanks to the pretty green caterpillar - which is difficult to discern at first sight - she had the opportunity to include an unremarkable weed such as a plantain in her book. In this respect, her book differs from the seventeenth-century florilegia and their concern with splendour and luxury. Yet despite her matter-of-fact scientific approach, she did not dispense with high artistic standards in her depiction of the plant. Her drawings are always scientific illustrations and artworks in one.