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 Favorem, 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
EX-COLL. CARL GUSTAF TESSIN, PRIME MINISTER OF SWEDEN
BOUND FOR LOUISA ULRIKA, QUEEN OF SWEDEN
Amsterdam: Johannes Oosterwyk, [1717–1718]. First edition in Latin.
Small quarto (7 ¾” x 5 7/8”, 198mm x 149mm): 2 binder’s blanks, π1 *4 A-H4, binder’s blank [$3 signed, –*1]. 37 leaves, pp. [10] (title, blank, 2pp. dedication, 2pp. to the reader, 3pp. preface, verses) 1-64. With 155 engraved plates: an allegorical frontispiece, a portrait and 153 botanical illustrations: a wreath preceding each of three series of 50 plates each, numbered 1-50, I-L and 21-50.
Bound (ca. 1751–1754) in chestnut morocco with a triple gilt fillet border and the armorial supralibros gilt of Louisa Ulrika of Prussia as Queen of Sweden to the front board. On the spine, five raised bands. Title gilt green sheep in the second panel. Double gilt fillets to the edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelle. Marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt. Celadon silk marking-ribbon.
Sunned, with some scuffing at the hinges and edges. Small patches of wear at the fore-corners. A little damp to the lower edge of the rear board, not affecting the text-block. Pale even tanning throughout, with small odd spots of foxing or staining, and offsetting at a handful of plates. Two repaired tears a the lower fore-corner of the frontispiece. Plates XV and XVI swapped. Ink ownership inscription of Herbert Olsson dated 1930 to the recto of the initial binder’s blank. Ink ownership inscription of “Carl:G.Tessin” 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.
Count Carl Gustaf Tessin (1695–1770) was one of the great Swedish polymaths of the Enlightenment. He was ambassador to the French court 1739–1742, and elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of the Sciences in 1741. Indeed, he was a patron of Carolus Linnaeus, whose Museum Tessinianum (1753) is a catalogue of Tessin’s collection of natural history specimens. Before serving as Sweden’s prime minister (i.e., president of the chancellery 1746–1752), Tessin was charged to lead the embassy — completed by Tessin’s wife Ulla and her niece Charlotta Fredrika Sparre, who served as maid of honor — that brought Louisa Ulrika of Prussia (Luise Ulrike von Preußen, 1720–1782) from Berlin to Stockholm to marry Adolf Frederick, then crown prince, in 1744.
Doubtless it was in the discharge of this duty, or in remembrance of it (he remained a trusted courtier until 1754, when they had a public falling-out), that he gave the volume to the Louisa Ulrika — younger sister of Frederick the Great — a powerful symbol of transformation from German princess to Swedish queen, executed by the greatest woman scientist of her era. Louisa Ulrika acceded to the throne as queen consort of Sweden in 1751 (the terminus ante quem non of the supralibros, if not the binding). She bristled at the strictures of constitutional monarchy, and she was profoundly unpopular during her reign as well as her dowagership.
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 #JLR0755
Price: $275,000