08/05/2026
New wallpaper ready for pasting. In this half step repeat, I've selected elements from the work of groundbreaking lady scientist and artist, Maria Sibylla Merian's Metamorphosis, or Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium of 1775 to be completely accurate. Her work was groundbreaking because she treated moths and butterflies as worthy subjects of serious scientific study at a time when many people still believed insects simply “arose” from mud or decay, and were hardly more than pests. Instead of drawing them as decorative add‑ons around flowers, she carefully bred caterpillars, watched them change into chrysalises and winged adults, and recorded each stage on the exact plant they fed on, creating some of the first detailed visual records of complete life cycles. This approach effectively invented ecological illustration, showing how insects, host plants and habitats fit together, and it set new standards for accuracy that naturalists such as Carl Linnaeus later relied on when classifying species. On top of that, she did all this as a largely self‑taught woman working outside universities or academies, financing her own expedition to Suriname and publication of her plates, which was almost unheard‑of for a woman in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
