Mariæ Sibillæ Merian dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum surinamensium. . . Dissertation sur la generation et les transformations des insectes de Surinam. . . BOUND WITH Histoire des insectes de l’Europe, Dessinée d’après nature & expliquée par Marie Sibille Merian. . .
A SAMMELBAND OF THE INSECTS OF SURINAM & OF EUROPE
Ex-coll. LANDESBIBLIOTHEK KASSEL & ALFRED MERIAN
Mariæ Sibillæ Merian dissertatio de generatione et metamorphosibus insectorum surinamensium: In quâ, præter vermes & erucas surinamenses, earumque 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 accuratè depicta, & nunc æri incisa. Accedit Appendix Transformationum piscium in ranas, & ranarum in pisces. Dissertation sur la generation et les transformations des insectes de Surinam: Dans laquelle on traite des vers et des chenilles de Surinam, des Plantes, fleurs, & fruits dont ils vivent & dans lesquels on les a trouvez. On y parle aussi des crapaux, lezards, serpens, aragnées, & autres petits animaux du même païs, peints sur les lieux d’après nature, & depuis gravez avec beaucoup de soin. On y a joint Un Traité des changements des poissons en grenouilles & des grenouilles en poissons. The Hague: Pieter Gosse, 1726. First edition in French, third Latin edition.
bound with
Maria Sibylla Merian, trans. Jean Marret. Histoire des insectes de l’Europe, Dessinée d’après nature & expliquée par Marie Sibille Merian: Où l’on traite de la Generation & des différentes Metamorphoses des Chenilles, Vers, Papillons, Mouches & autres Insectes; & des Plantes, des Fleurs & des Fruits dont ils se nourrissent, Traduite du Hollandois en François Par Jean Marret, Docteur en Medecine; Augmentée par le même d’une Description exacte des Plantes, dont il est parlé dans cette Histoire; & des Explications de dix-huit nouvelles Planches, dessinées par la même Dame, & qui n’ont point encore paru. Ouvrage qui contient XCIII. Planches. Amsterdam: Jean Frederic Bernard, 1730. First folio edition in French.
Folio (19 7/8” x 14 1/8”, 505mm x 360mm): π1 2π2 *1 **2 A-S2, 3π2 2A-X2 [$2 signed]. 86 leaves (Surinam: 42, Europe: 44), pp. [12] (half-title,[1] 2 blanks, Latin title, French title, blank, 2pp. dedication, 2pp. Latin to the reader, 2pp. French to the reader), 1 2-72; pp. [4] (half-title, blank, title, blank) 1 2-84. Surinam: with 72 hand-colored engraved plates (numbered 1-72) as well as engraved vignettes to the title-pages and engraved armorial achievement to the dedication; Europe: with 186 (of 184) hand-colored engraved plates (on 50 leaves, in groups of 2, 3 or 4; numbered I.1, I.2, II-L, LI.1, LI.2, LII-LXXX, 2LXXX, LXXXI-LXXXV, 2LXXXV, LXXXVI-CLXIX, CLXXII–CLXXXIV) as well as engraved vignette to the title-page and engraved tailpiece (=pll. CLXX & CLXXI on one plate). With 263 engravings in toto, of which 258 with hand-color.
Bound in later marbled calf. On the spine, six panels. Title and author (“HISTOIRE/ des/ INSECTES/ par/ M. S. MERIAN”) gilt to red morocco in the second panel. All edges of the text-block stained green. Presented in a modern green board slip-case.
Rubbed, with some wear at the fore-corners. Boards starting, particularly the lower edge fo the front board. Mild even tanning throughout, but a particularly fresh example. Some ink-soiling and pigment-oxidation to the versos of the plates, with the odd crease. Offsetting to the end-papers at the turn-ins. Plates LXXX and LXXXV of Europe printed twice; altogether an unusual mixed issue of the plates (see below). Graphite ownership signature of Alfred Merian twice to the recto of the front free end-paper: once dated “Jan. 1859.” and the second in Latin: “Ex libris/ Alfredi Meriani”. Oval ink-stamp “EX/ BIBLIOTHECA/ CASSELLANA” to the verso of the French title-page of Surinam.
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 three years, focusing intently on the metamorphoses of insects (and other animals, including reptiles and amphibians) there.
Upon her return, she worked to publish the first edition of the Dissertatio (1705), illustrated with sixty plates. Working with her daughters Dorothea and Johanna, she colored the plates based on her own experience of the plants, animals and landscape of Surinam. 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 appeared two years after Maria Sibylla’s death. The first work in the present volume is the first translation of the work into French (parallel with the Latin), expanding its readership considerably.
The second work traces Merian’s long fascination with insects, even before her time in Surinam; the first edition of the first part of the 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… with the addition of a second part. Merian 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 in 1718 (posthumously) as the Erucarum ortus in three parts, with 150 plates in total. The present work was translated into French by Jean Marret in 1730 as Histoire des insectes de l’Europe — it now being necessary to distinguish Merian’s European work from her South American. The present 1730 edition was published in folio (the Dutch edition appeared the same year). The numeration is vexed; Nissen records two issues without priority: with 93 plate-leaves (i.e., 2 per plate) or 47 plate-leaves. Ours is a mixed issue, and consequently duplicates plates LXXX and LXXXV (i.e., once each on a two-plate and a four-plate leaf). The plates of the fourth part (the title’s “dix-huit nouvelles Planches, dessinées par la même Dame”) are rather larger — ca. 203mm x 146mm — than those of the original three parts — ca. 154mm x 121mm — and add 31 plates rather than 18.
The Bibliotheca Cassellana began in 1580 as the private library of the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel. Over time this was merged with the Universitätsbibliothek, the Landesbibliothek and Murhard’sche Bibliothek of Kassel. Likely the Sammelband was owned by Frederick I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1676–1751) from 1730 and King of Sweden from 1720. The library was bombed in the Second World War, destroying nearly all its printed books. The survival of the volume attests to its exit, perhaps into the hands of the Swiss merchant-banker Alfred Merian(-Thurneysen; 1834–1916) by 1859. Merian doubtless claimed ancestry to the ancient patrician family, but the volume could not properly be said to be a “family copy.”
Surinam: Hunt 467; Nissen, BBI 1341; Pfeiffer B 5; Pritzel 6105.
Europe: Hunt 483; Nissen, BBI 1342; Pfeiffer A 4.
[1] Not called for in Hunt, and not present in another example of the work held by Arader.
Item #JLR0869
Price: $450,000