Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters

I suppose if I had been schooled in a more recent decade, I might have known of this lady and her lucky daughters. Sequestered somewhere in those abhorrent Women’s Studies programs that serve, like similar “special” studies, only to marginalize and caricature.

But, since I adore old school illustrations of flora and fauna almost as much as I do eccentric, transgressive and brilliant ladies, I might have forgiven the arbiters of PC for an earlier introduction.

Born in Germany, 1647, married at 18, two daughters. Left her husband and was divorced by him.

But acute observation is a necessary part of the process in concocting these perfect illustrations. And so she observed. She observed, for example, that unlike common scientific wisdom of her day, butterflies were not, in truth, being spontaneously generated from warm mud.

For real.

And so she observed, depicted and published the glorious life cycles of sundry caterpillars, their predictable and ever glorious metamorphoses. Proving and herself illustrating that beauty and uncommon wisdom are so very often born of happy, careful eye and steady hand.