Mariæ Sibillæ Merian dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum Surinamensium: In quâ, pæter vermes & erucas Surinamenses, earuqmque admirandam metamorphosin, Plantæ, flores & fructus, quibus vescuntur, & in quibus fuerunt inventæ, exhibentur. His adjunguntur bufones, lacerti, serpentes, araneæ, aliaque admiranda istius regionis animalcula; omnia manu ejusdem Matronæ in America ad vivum accurate depicta, & nunc æri incisa. Accedit Appendix Transformationum piscium in ranas, & ranarum in pisces
THE MACCLESFIELD COPY
WITH COUNTER-PROOF PLATES
Amsterdam: Johannes Oosterwyk, 1719. Second edition, revised.
Folio (20 9/16” x 14 ½”, 523mm x 367mm): 42 leaves, pp. [8] (title, advertisement, 2pp. dedication, 2pp. to the reader], [72] (description of each plate). With 73 engraved plates, all with original hand-color, heightened gilt: frontispiece (after Frederik Ottens) and 72 natural-historical counter-proof plates. Title-page and first page of the dedication additionally gilt.
Bound in later (XIXc) diced russia (re-backed) with a wide scrollwork border gilt. On the spine, 7 raised bands. Author and title gilt to the second panel. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards, continuing onto the inside dentelle. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Presented in a felt-lined brown cloth box by Brockman, with their ticket internally.
Re-backed. A few peripheral scuffs, but otherwise very good indeed. Internally, the odd spot of soiling, and offsetting and bleed-through from the pigments — especially oxidation of the greens. Bookplate of the South Library of Shirburn Castle, seat of the Earls of Macclesfield, completed in ink manuscript with the press mark “168.B.10” to the front paste-down. Press mark repeated in graphite (“168 – b –10”) to the recto of the first free end-paper. A second bookplate, not completed, to the verso of the first free end-paper.
Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) came from a distinguished Swiss-German family; her father was Matthäus Merian and her grandfather Johann Theodor de Bry. In 1685, Merian moved with her two daughters and her mother into a Labadist community at Waltha Castle. She was so inspired by the Wunderkammer of Cornelis van Sommelsdijck, who had been governor of Surinam (Dutch Guiana or Suriname), at the castle, that she sailed for South America with her younger daughter Dorothea. There she studied, drew and collected specimens for nearly two years, focusing intently on the metamorphoses of insects there. Upon her return, she worked to publish the first edition of the Dissertatio (1705). Working with her daughters Dorothea and Johanna, she colored the plate. Unhappy that her name had been omitted from the engravings, she took counter-proof impressions, providing only the faintest printed linework and preserving the original orientation of her water-colors.
Merian suffered a stroke in 1715 but continued to work until her death in 1717, even coloring some sheets in preparation for an envisioned revised second edition. Johanna, her elder daughter, emigrated to Surinam in 1711 and sent back additional material to be worked into twelve new plates. That revised edition — the present item — appeared two years after Maria Sibylla’s death. As with the first edition, counter-proofs were taken — pressing a blank sheet onto a sheet fresh out of the engraving-press — and used as the very lightest framework for sensitive water-colors, based on first-hand experience.
The book made its way to the South Library of Shirburn Castle (Oxfordshire), from 1716 the home of the Parkers, in 1721 created Earls of Macclesfield. The bookplate is dated 1860, which places it in the earldom of Thomas Augustus Wolstenholme Parker (the sixth earl, 1850–1896). Still in the Parker family, Shirburne Castle was built in the XIVc — complete with moat and crenellations — and renovated in the Georgian period. Its libraries were disbursed by Sotheby’s London; the present item was lot 71 in the first part of the sale, 16 March 2004.
Dunthorne 205; Landwehr 131; Nissen, BBI 1341; Oak Spring Flora 101; Sitwell, Great Flower Books p. 67.
Item #JLR0556
Price: $3,600,000