A quiz question · medium
How old was Maria Sibylla Merian when she sailed alone to Suriname in 1699?
Merian was 52, widowed, and supporting herself in Amsterdam as a botanical illustrator. She sailed with her younger daughter Dorothea Maria Graff and stayed two years.
Read the full story →From the story
The 52-Year-Old German Widow Who Sailed to a Dutch Colony in 1699 to Document Insect Metamorphosis and Produced One of the Founding Works of Modern Entomology Maria Sibylla Merian, a 52-year-old Frankfurt-born artist and naturalist, sailed alone with her younger daughter to the Dutch colony of Suriname in June 1699. Over two years she documented the life cycles of approximately 90 South American insect species, ate the same food as her enslaved Indigenous and African informants, and produced the 1705 *Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium* — one of the founding works of modern entomology.
Related questions
- What was the Antikythera mechanism designed to do?
- What technique in Archimedes's *Method of Mechanical Theorems* anticipated what later mathematics?
- At what UTC time did the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle land in the Sea of Tranquility?
- What major scientific work was published in 1543, conventionally marking the start of the Scientific Revolution?