James Sowerby

Aquilegia Vulgaris (Common Columbine) /// Botanical Botany James Sowerby Flower

1796

Artist: Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (French, 1707-1788) Title: "Picris (Sunflower); Helmintia (Bristly Oxtongue)" (Syngenesie; Polygamie, Plate 648) Portfolio: Histoire Na...

Artist: Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (French, 1707-1788) Title: "Euphorbia (Spurge)" (Dodecandrie, Trigynie, Plate 411) Portfolio: Histoire Naturelle Year: 1749-1789 Medium...

[MERIAN, Maria Sibyl]. Pineapple with foliage. The Hague, Gosse, 1719. Engraving of a Pineapple with foliage by J. Mulder, P. Sluyter and D. Stoopendaal after Merian, with later hand-colour, from Dissertatio de Generatione et Metamorphasibus Insectorum Surinamensium. Framed and glazed, overall dimensions: 40cm by 53.2cm by 4.5cm. Superb engravings which depict the metamorphoses of South American insects and the exotic plants on which they feed. Maria Sybilla, daughter of the German engraver and publisher Matthias Merian, devoted herself to the study of European insects and their metamorphoses. As a result of the wealth of tropical varieties being brought back by the Dutch West Indies Company...

Four plates from The Wondrous Transformation of Caterpillars and their Strange Diet of Flowers. “Wolfsmelk Rupsen;" “Wolfsmilch, Raupe und Schmetterling" Amsterdam: J F Bernard, 1730. Each an engraving with hand coloring in watercolor and gouache printed on one sheet of watermarked Honig cream laid paper, each measures 6 1/4 x 5 inches (157 x 121 mm), sheet measures 20 5/8 x 14 inches (522 x 355 mm), full margins. With one 1.5 inch inch tear across the area of the top-left corner, well outside of image area. Handling creases in the lower right sheet quadrant, as well as minor, loose cockling, otherwise in very good condition. The colors are superb with exceptionally fresh and bright saturation. Engraved between 1679 and 1683, printed 1730. Plates included: CXXI, CXXII, CXXIII, & CXXIV. MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN was one of the most highly respected entomologists of the 17th century, and remains today one of the field's most significant figures. A German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, she reared herself on the study of caterpillars, and made tremendous contributions to the knowledge of the life cycles of numerous species. Until her detailed and careful study of the process of metamorphosis it was thought that insects were "born of mud," through spontaneous generation. Trained as a miniature painter by her stepfather, she published her first book of illustrations in 1675, at the age of 28. In 1679, Merian published the first volume of the two-volume series on caterpillars, The Wondrous Transformation of Caterpillars and their Strange Diet of Flowers; the second volume followed in 1683. Each volume contained 50 plates that she engraved and etched. In 1699, Merian traveled to Dutch Guiana...