bavarikon4UDescription
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the artist and naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) wrote to the Nuremberg physician and botanist Johann Georg Volkamer (1662-1744) with whom she had close business and scientific ties. After returning from her dangerous expedition to the tropical rainforests of South America, she provided information on the development of her main work, the "Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium". She described her diverse work as a researcher, starting with collecting caterpillars, breeding them and finally the dissecting of the insects. As a businesswoman, she offered her customer exotic specimens and worried about the difficult funding of her new work, which appeared in large format and was to make her world-famous. Since Merian left no autobiography and no self-portrait, her letters are the most important testimonies of an extraordinary life as researcher and artist at the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. In this letter Merian reports on the completion of her great work: she offers the "Metamorphosis" in two languages, Dutch and Latin, and gives precise information on prices for illuminated (in colour) and non-illuminated versions of the work: 45 and 15 guilders respectively. Detailed greetings show the seemingly often formal and withdrawn "obliging friend" from a warm-hearted, personal side.
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