Chrysalis : Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis

Before Darwin, before Audubon, there was Merian. An artist turned naturalist, known for her botanical illustrations, she was born just sixteen years after Galileo proclaimed that the earth orbited the sun. But at the age of fifty she sailed from Europe to the New World on a solo scientific expedition to study insect metamorphosis--an unheard-of journey for any naturalist at that time, much less a woman. When she returned she produced a book that secured her reputation, only to have it savaged in the nineteenth century by scientists who disdained the work of "amateurs." This book takes us from golden-age Amsterdam to the Surinam tropics to modern laboratories where Merian's insights fuel a new branch of biology. Author Todd brings to life a seventeenth-century woman whose boldness and vision would still be exceptional today.--From publisher description;The most noble of all the worms -- Godly miracles in a little book -- That which is found in the fens and heath -- Le Grande monde -- An awesome and expensive trip -- Far out into the wilderness -- The first and strangest work that had ever been painted in America -- The modern world is very sensitive -- Because of its color so special

An artist turned naturalist known today mostly for her exquisite insect and butterfly prints, Maria Sibylla Merian was born just thirteen years after Galileo was prosecuted for proclaiming the earth orbited the sun. But in 1699, more than a century before Darwin or Humboldt, she sailed from Amsterdam to South America on an expedition to study metamorphosis. It was an unheard-of journey for any naturalist at that time, much less a woman, and she undertook it at the age of 52 —with only her daughter for company.

For two years, she stalked the tropical wilderness, looking for the caterpillars that were her passion, sketching her discoveries on scraps of parchment. Her careful observations of iridescent blue morpho butterflies and giant flying cockroaches made her one of the first to describe metamorphosis—at a time when theories of spontaneous generation still held sway (old snow gave birth to flies; raindrops yielded frogs)—and laid the groundwork for modern-day biological science, particularly ecology. But her accomplishments were mostly dismissed and then forgotten in the nineteenth century, when scientists feared that they would be discredited if they built on the work of "amateurs."

Now Kim Todd has restored Merian to her rightful place in the beautifully written and illustrated Chrysalis. Taking us from golden-age Amsterdam to the sweltering rain forests of Surinam to the modern laboratories where Merian's insights fuel a new branch of biology, Kim Todd brings to life an amazing seventeenth-century woman whose boldness and vision would still be exceptional today.

The New Yorker

In this spellbinding biography, Todd interweaves the life of Maria Sibylla Merian, a German artist and naturalist who became famous in the seventeenth century for her engravings of caterpillars, with the intellectual and scientific history of metamorphosis. At a time when theories of spontaneous generation were popular, and when most naturalists contented themselves with specimens pinned behind glass, Merian believed “in what could not be encased—the moment-by-moment shifts.” Her work led her to Amsterdam, where curiosities arriving on trading ships prompted her, at the age of fifty-two, to sell her belongings for passage to Surinam. The engravings of the bugs she saw there brought the strange, delicate environment of the Americas to vibrant life, and revealed the complexities of insect mutation and regeneration. Todd points out the difficulties—competing theories and superstitions, exceptions for every rule—faced by natural scientists in Merian’s day, and hears their echo in modern-day entomology.

Today, an entomologist in a laboratory can gaze at a butterfly pupa with a microscope so powerful that the swirling cells on the pupa's skin look like a galaxy. She can activate a single gene or knock it out. What she can't do is discover how the insect behaves in its natural habitat—which means she doesn't know what steps to take to preserve it from extinction, nor how any particular gene may interact with the environment. Four hundred years ago, a fifty-year-old Dutch woman set sail on a solo scientific expedition to study insect metamorphosis. She could not have imagined the routine magic that scientists perform today—but her absolute insistence on studying insects in their natural habitats was so far ahead of its time that it is only now coming back into favor. Chrysalis restores Maria Sibylla Merian to her rightful place in the history of science, taking us from golden-age Amsterdam to the Surinam tropics to modern laboratories where Merian's insights fuel new... Before Darwin, before Audubon, there was Maria Sibylla Merian.An artist turned naturalist known for her botanical illustrations, Merian was born just sixteen years after Galileo proclaimed that the earth orbited the sun. But at the age of fifty, she sailed from Europe to the New World on a solo scientific expedition to study insect metamorphosis—an unheard-of journey for any naturalist at that time, much less a woman. When she returned, she produced a book that secured her reputation, only to have it savaged in the nineteenth century by scientists who disdained the work of “amateurs.” Exquisitely written and illustrated, Chrysalis takes us from golden-age Amsterdam to the Surinam tropics to modern laboratories where Merian's insights fuel a new branch of biology. Kim Todd brings to life a seventeenth-century woman whose boldness and vision would still be exceptional today. Before Darwin, before Audubon, before Gilbert White, there was Merian, an artist turned naturalist, known for her botanical illustrations. This work takes us from golden-age Amsterdam to the Surinam tropics to modern laboratories where Merian's insights fuel a fresh branch of biology.