Abstract

It was the nineteenth century English politician and writer Disraeli who wrote in his book, Contarini Fleming: “read not history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” Today, it does not make sense to discern between biography and history. Biography has become a genre itself. In this chapter, I intend to recreate Maria Sibylla Merian's life by putting together loose pieces, collected here and there, from which not only a whole picture of her and her work should emerge, but also a general view of her time, her family, the places where she lived, and her cultural influences. Merian was an important insect and flower painter and entomologist in her time, and also a mother in charge of her two daughters. My aim is to help develop insight into her influence both on her own society and on subsequent generations of entomologists, including that her work and innovations were nearly forgotten by history.