Related external works: reference

Maria Sibylla Merian, Raden-blum / unf Korn-ähr. / Lychnis segetum, & Siligo., Kupferstich, abgedruckt in: Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandelung, und sonderbare Blumen-nahrung: worinnen, durch eine gantz-neue Erfindung, Der Raupen, Würmer, Sommer-vögelein, Motten, Fliegen, und anderer dergleichen Thierlein, Ursprung, Speisen, und Veränderungen, samt ihrer Zeit, Ort und Eigenschaften, Nürnberg, Frankfurt am Main, Leipzig, Bd. 2, 1683, Tf. XI

Cereal Ear and Corn Cockle with Metamorphoses of the Five-Spot Ladybird and Blowfly, after 1683

Blatt: 191 x 150 mm

Physical Description: Watercolour and gouache over transfer print on vellum

Inventory Number: 1500

Object Number: 1500 Z

Acquisition: Acquired in 1817 from the Johann Georg Grambs Collection

Status: Request for presentation in the study room of the Prints and Drawings Department

Texts

About the Work

Corn cockles grow in wheat fields, and in her drawing from the second volume of the caterpillar book (1683) Maria Sibylla Merian accordingly combined the flower with an ear of wheat. On the plants she staged the metamorphoses of a ladybird and a blowfly. Between them are the larva and pupa of the fly seen on the lowermost leaf of the corn cockle. Merian had found the larva when dissecting a dead mouse. She did not depict the mouse, however, because such a motif would have been an unpleasant sight, as she wrote in the text accompanying this plate of the Caterpillar Book.