Insect prints
Butterflies, beetles and their host plants by Maria Sibylla Merian and Edward Donovan. Every print is a facsimile giclée at the size of the original sheet, limited to 250.
132 prints
Lantren Fly with Pomegranate Flower
$185
Lepidoptera – Papilio Nigrina – Papilio Clytie
$165
Large Horned Beetle with Potato
$185
Lepidoptera – Papilio Abeona – Papilio Acantha
$165
Sweet Bean
$185
Lepidoptera – Papilio Erectheus
$165
Orange
$185
Lepidoptera Papilio Chrysippe – Papilio Arctous
$165
Pearly-eyed Butterfly with Nut
$185
Lepidoptera – Papilio Bankia
$165
Red Ginger Plant with Bee
$185
Lepidoptera – Papilio Nerina – Papilio Prosope
$165
Pepper Plant Capsicum
$185
Lepidoptera – Papilio Evagoras
$165
Water Scorpion, Giant Water Beetle and Frogs
$185
Lepidoptera – Papilio Agricola
$165
Wooly-haired Megalopygio Caterpillar
$185
Lepidoptera – Sphinx Australasiæ
$165
Pearly-eyed Butterfly and Flies
$185
Lepidoptera – Cossus Nebulosus
$165
Female Toad and Young with Watercress
$185
Lepidoptera, Cossus Labyrinthicus
$165
Caligo Butterfly Wasp and Acanthacae
$185
Lepidoptera, Papilio Solandra, Papilio Zelima
$165
Sweet White Guava
$185
Papaya
$185
Cocoa
$185
Papaya
$185
Lemon
$185
Opossums with Young & Praying Mantis
$185
Fig
$185
Heather Butterfly & Metamorphic Study
$185
Caiman
$185
Lizard
$185
Frog metamorphic stages
$185
Stag Beetle, Palm Tree
$185
About insect prints
Maria Sibylla Merian was 52 when she sailed from Amsterdam to Suriname in 1699 with her daughter Dorothea Maria. For two years the two women collected along the Suriname River, bred caterpillars in boxes and painted every stage with the plant it was found on. Her book opens with the pineapple, the fruit she thought the finest in the colony, and goes on through cassava, banana, guava and cotton, each with the insects that live on it. All 72 plates of the 1719 edition are here, from the Harlequin Beetle and the Mantids to the Tarantula & Weaver Ants in a guava tree. What is Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium? tells the story of the book.
Edward Donovan’s insects are smaller sheets from almost a century later, and not only butterflies: The Insects of China and The Insects of India include two lantern flies, Fulgora candelaria and Fulgora pyrorhynchus, each set against a flowering plant of its country.