MERIAN, Maria Sibylla

(1647–1717)

   Member of a Swiss German family of artists. Merian married painter and architect An dreas Graff. She won fame because of her splendid botanical draw ings. The results of her stay in the Dutch colony of Surinam were published under the title Metamorphosis insectorum surinamensium in 1705. She joined the Protestantsect of Jean de Labadieand died in Amsterdam. Many of her original drawings were bought in 1717 by the Russian tsar Peter the Great and were not published until 1974 and 1976 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).