Erucarum ortus, alimentum et paradoxa metamorphosis, In qua Origo, pabulum, transformatio, nec non tempus, locus & proprietates erucarum, vermium, papilionum, phalænarum, muscarum, aliorumque hujusmodi exsanguium animalculorum exhibentur in Favorum, atque insectorum, herbarum, florum, & plantarum Amatorum, tùm etiam pictorum, limbolariorum, aliorumque commodum exactè inquisita, ad vivum delineata, typis excusa, compendiosèque descripta per Mariam Sibillam Merian
Amsterdam: Johannes Oosterwyk, [1718]. First edition in Latin.
Small quarto (7 3/8” x 5 5/8”, 188mm x 142mm): binder’s blank, π1 *4 A-H4 [$3 signed; –*1]. 37 leaves, pp. [10] (title, blank, 2pp. dedication, 2pp. to the reader, 3pp. preface, verse), 1-64. With 154 engraved plates: a hand-colored allegorical frontispiece, a portrait of Merian, 3 hand-colored part-titles (as garlands without text) and 149 (of 150) natural-historical plates numbered 2I-L (part II), 31-50 (part III) and 11-50 (part I); part I is bound at the end, with pl. 50 of that part before pl. 50 of the third part.
Bound in calf (re-backed) with a double gilt fillet border. On the spine, five raised bands. Title gilt to burgundy sheep in the second panel. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block glazed red.
Re-backed. Scuffing and rubbing to the extremities. Marginal losses to the re-inserted front binder’s blanks. The odd spot of foxing, but altogether a very good copy. Lacking pl. 49 of the first part. Part I plates following those of parts II and III; pl. 50 of the first part is bound before pl. 50 of the third part. Graphite collation to the verso of the front free end-paper, to p. 1 (noting that “The plates to these [viz. part I] are the last […] in the back –”) and to p. 17 (noting that pl. XLIX (Cariophillus purpureus) is “Wanting”); all in a single hand. Graphite marginalia to most plates, noting the corresponding page at upper right and, in most cases, the Latin and English names of the plants; this hand appears to be consistent with that marking the text. Armorial bookplate of Harry Arnold of Arnbarrow (completed in ink manuscript with shelfmark “D 78”) to the front free end-paper. Bookplate of the Arcadian Library to the front paste-down. Ownership signature of “T. Harrison/ 1820.” above a signature crossed out (“F. Wh…”?) above the signature of J. Gough, all to the recto of the first free end-paper. Old price in ink manuscript (“6. 40”) to the title-page.
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.
Indeed, metamorphic insects (Erucarum ortus translates to “the origin of caterpillars”[1]) were the principle subject of her lifelong study and publication, even before her time in Surinam; the first edition of the first part of the present work (with only European insects) was published in German in Nuremberg in 1679 as “Der Raupen…” It was issued in Dutch 1713–1714 as “Der Rupsen Begin…” with the addition of a second part. Merian suffered a stroke in 1715 but completed the work with its third part, aided by her daughter Dorothea Maria Graff and incorporating additional material from Surinam sent by her elder daughter Johanna Helena Herolt, which was published shortly after her death in 1717.
A Latin text reaching a wider audience than the Dutch, the present item, published they year after Merian’s death, can be considered the culmination of her lifetime’s work. Colored examples are so rare that Landwehr cites none (though he did own a (colored) counter-proof copy that sold at Christie’s in 2020).
The ownership signatures would appear too generic to place, except for the bookplate of Harry Arnold of Arnbarrow (in Cumbria, just over the border from Lancashire). He died in 1907 at the age of 76. Mary Susan Arnold (née Gough, d. 1904) was the daughter of the naturalist Thomas Gough (1804–1880), third child of John Gough (1757–1825), the “Blind Philosopher” of Middleshaw in Cumbria, teacher of botany and zoology. John Gough apprenticed with his uncle (and eventually father-in-law), Dr. Thomas Harrison (1774–1834), a surgeon who served as mayor of Kendal in Cumbria. Thus we can assume that the volume spent upwards of a century in Cumbria. The marginalia are presumably Harrison’s (likelier, perhaps, by the hand) or Gough’s.
The Arcadian Library is an extraordinary private collection in London that focuses both on the history of science and on East-West cultural exchange. A selection of their books was sold at Christie’s London (14 November 2007; the present item was lot 238).
Brunet III.1650; Nissen, BBI 1342; Landwehr, Dutch Books 135.
[1] The title in full can be translated: “the origin of caterpillars, their diet and the paradox of metamorphosis, in which the origin, food, transformation and also the season, habitat and properties of caterpillars, worms, butterflies, moths, flies and of whatever other sorts of little bloodless animals; and also, in favor of enthusiasts, then of painters and of fringe-makers (?*) and in the interest of others: insects, herbs, flowers and plants exactly investigated, drawn from life, detailed in text and thoroughly described by Maria Sibylla Merian.” *“Limbolariorum” is the genitive plural of limbolarius, a maker of edges or fringes (from limbo, a peripheral place); presumably this refers to lace-makers.
Item #JLR0570
Price: $250,000