{"id":4148,"date":"2020-05-22T09:21:48","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T07:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/merianin.de\/?page_id=4148"},"modified":"2021-02-17T15:58:59","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T14:58:59","slug":"juengere-tochter","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/merianin.de\/en\/home\/juengere-tochter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Younger Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \n Nuremberg \u2013 Frankfurt \u2013 Frisia \u2013 Amsterdam \u2013 Paramaribo \u2013 <\/span>\n \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>
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\n \n Amsterdam - St. Petersburg <\/span>\n \t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\tDOROTHEA MARIA GRAFF (1678-1743)\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>
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The younger sister had a much more restless childhood; important years of development coincided with the family\u2019s time in the Labadist colony where the children were separated from their parents and were educated with great strictness to become God-fearing people. She was 13-14 years old when the family moved to Amsterdam. She lived in her mother\u2019s household and accompanied her on her great expedition to Suriname. For a long time, the dominant opinion in Merian research was that the mother had undertaken this major voyage with the older, more experienced daughter. In the surviving passenger list for the return voyage, the entry only mentions \u201cMaria Sibilla Merian, her daughter and a native Indian woman\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

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Excerpt from the Passenger List of the \u201cDe Freede\u201d of 18 June, 1701 <\/em>(1)<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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So a nameless daughter and a nameless native Indian woman who left no trace in the Netherlands: no official document about her release, unlike several other slaves, no entry in a death register, no grave. (2) By now Dorothea Maria\u2019s participation in the expedition is considered to be proven after the find of a correspondence of third parties. (3)<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Three weeks after their return, Phillip Hendriks\u2019 (Hendrix), a ship\u2019s physician from Heidelberg, published the banns for his intended marriage to Dorothea Maria in Amsterdam and they were married soon after. (4) Where did they meet? Before the voyage or on the ship? (5) Or in Suriname? (6) \u2013 Definitely not after the voyage, for then the preparation time before the wedding would have been much too short. Probably this Dr Hendriks, just like Jakob Hendrik Herolt, was an experienced advisor to his future mother-in-law even before the expedition.<\/p>\n

The married couple lived in a house with Dorothea\u2019s mother. But the ship\u2019s physician was working on the East India route and was often away for more than a year. (7) He also brought back natural objects for the \u201cfirm\u201d from his voyages. (8) Dorothea Maria became her mother\u2019s most important collaborator (9), her \u201cright hand\u201d, and through the daily collaboration could develop the knowledge and craft skills she might have lacked.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Maybe later on she not only copied her mother\u2019s motifs, but even imitated her signature; (19) for an original by Merian was, of course, more valuable to the customers than a copy fashioned by her daughter. Because the signature was used as a \u201cbrand name\u201d, the involvement of several hands had become an important topic in research on Merian.<\/p>\n

Ella Reitsma, through careful comparisons, discovered that works may be attributed not only to the older, but also to the younger daughter, particularly when other animals are also depicted in addition to butterflies. Thus in the Metamorphosis, there are some compositions (such as the one shown in the plate to the left) which do not correspond to Merian\u2019s usual design layout, and where Dorothea Maria might have been involved. (11)<\/p>\n

In the works allocated to Dorothea, the force and also the cruelty of nature in the tropics are expressed in an almost playful way. In the family firm, she was the specialist on reptiles (e.g. snakes), amphibians (kaimans) and tropical birds (e.g. ibises) which she painted with bolder brush strokes than her mother. (12)<\/p>\n

Merian drew and painted water-colours for the eyes, the antennae and the fragile wings of insects with the finest of brush strokes and in delicate colours. Dorothea Maria\u2019s plant motifs sometimes had a very special note when her mother added a butterfly and a caterpillar. (13)<\/p>\n

When Merian died in early 1717, Tsar Peter the Great was just paying his second visit to Amsterdam and commissioned his personal physician and close confidant to purchase works of art for his collection in his new residence in St Petersburg. Dorothea Maria sold him a large part of her mother\u2019s artistic estate. This physician, the highly educated Scotsman Robert Areskin (Erskine) noticed the Merian\u2019s insect sketch book, probably insignificant to look at from the outside, and he bought it for his personal possession. (16)<\/p>\n

In the same year, Dorothea Maria brought the family firm\u2019s work to a successful completion by publishing another 50 plates, analogue to the first and second Caterpillar Book, containing descriptions and Dutch text, as her mother\u2019s posthumous work. (17)<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Thick-stemmed Water Hyacinth with Pepper Tree Frog and Giant Water Bug<\/em> (10)<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Kaiman with Snake<\/em> (13)<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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In September 1717, Dorothea Maria sold the entire stocks of the Merian publishing enterprise to an Amsterdam book seller: printed copies of the Caterpillar Books, of the Flower Book, and the Suriname Book, also illuminated copies, copperplates (some of them still from the Nuremberg times!) for further prints, but also books by other authors from the family library. This radical break with everything which had been part of her working life for decades suggests that she wanted to set off for new shores, both literally and metaphorically speaking. She signed the contract at the notary public with \u201cDorothea Maria Merian Weduwe (= widow) van Philip Hendrix\u201c<\/em>. (18)<\/p>\n

For her, almost forty years old, a new life began, and she found a new life partner: the painter Georg Gsell (1673-1740) hailing from St Gallen and also a widower who had been a lodger in the Merian\u2019s house with his daughters. (19) Gsell was called by the Tsar to his Art Academy in St Petersburg, and Dorothea Maria emigrated with him. Just like the court painter Gsell, she became a recognised teacher at the Art Academy there. As \u201cGsellscha\u201d she did meritorious work for the cultural life in this new residence city. (20)<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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In her many years of work, together with her husband, she organised the Tsar\u2019s collection and promoted the dissemination of her mother\u2019s scientific and artistic heritage. (21) Today, St Petersburg has one of the world\u2019s largest and most valuable Merian collections. But the Merian literature only rarely points out that her daughter Dorothea Maria was probably one of the most important keepers of this treasure. The Tsar even let her travel to Amsterdam again in 1734, (22) to purchase even more Merian works.<\/p>\n

People in Nuremberg (and many international Merian researchers) should be particularly grateful to her, for without her, Merian\u2019s insect sketch book probably would not exist any more. Who but her would have recognised the value of this unique book, and rescued it for the Tsar\u2019s collection when Areskin died one year after his Amsterdam journey (1719)? One fact which is not often recognised in relevant publications, is that the former family garden in Nuremberg could not have been located without Merian\u2019s personal sketch book \u2013 and apart from that a lot of interesting information about other sites of finds for her caterpillar collection would have been lost forever.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

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  1. Excerpt from \u201cPassenger Manifest\u201c 18.06.1701, National Archives, The Hague, Society of Suriname; printed in Reitsma (2008), p. 198; free \u2013 no permission necessary; information in National Archives, Amsterdam<\/li>\n
  2. Reitsma (Lit 2008), p. 198 und 205<\/li>\n
  3. Details of this complicated chain of proof in Davis (Lit 1995), p. 316, endnote 127<\/li>\n
  4. Davis (Lit 1995), p. 178<\/li>\n
  5. Pfister-Burkhalter(Lit 1980), p. 51, suggests that Hendriks might have to Suriname on the same freighter as Merian and her daughter (no source quoted).<\/li>\n
  6. Suggested by Reitsma (Lit 2008), p. 200<\/li>\n
  7. Reitsma (Lit 2008), p. 201<\/li>\n
  8. Davis (Lit 1995), p. 199<\/li>\n
  9. Reitsma (Lit 2008), p. 214<\/li>\n
  10. Reitsma (Lit 2008), p. 102, with comparison of handwriting<\/li>\n
  11. Reitsma (Lit 2008) p. 214: \u201cDorothea Maria creates rather stiff compositions, among them the spiders (pl. 18) Scarlet hippeastrum (pl. 22), coca tree (pl. 26) and water hyacinth with a frog and a bud (pl. 56).\u201d In the digital copy of GNM http:\/\/dlib.gnm.de\/item\/2KzMER034_37\/78html, direct click on left column \u201dContent\u201d\u201c<\/li>\n
  12. Reitsma, p. 227 ff<\/li>\n
  13. loc. cit. (Lit 2008), p. 214, Reitsma (Lit 2008) e.g. sees examples of the cooperation between mother and daughters in the plates p. 169, p. 221, p. 224; similar joint watercolours with the older daughter e. g. p. 152<\/li>\n
  14. Merian, Maria Sibylla (Dorothea Maria), Thick-stemmed Water Hyacinth; courtesy of Artis Library, University of Amsterdam, Legkast 019.01; title taken from Schmidt-Loske (Nat 2007), p. 126; cd GNM, Inv. No. Kz MER 034, Im Digitalisat des GNM http:\/\/dlib.gnm.de\/item\/2KzMER034_37\/78html, direct click in left column \u201cInhalt\u201d<\/li>\n
  15. Merian, Maria Sibylla (Dorothea Maria), Cayman with Serpent; courtesy of Artis Library, University of Amsterdam, Legkast 019.01; on the extended edition of the Metamorphosis with additional plates: Dissertation sur la g\u00e9n\u00e9ration et les transformations des insectes de Suriname, edition Gosse 1726; courtesy of Artis Library, University of Amsterdam, Legkast 019.01; cf. non-illuminated edition with exceptional precision in UBErl, Sig. No. H61\/2 TREW.B 13\/14<\/li>\n
  16. Pfister-Burkhalter (Lit 1998), p. 28; Reitsma (Lit 2008), p. 234<\/li>\n
  17. Wettengl (Lit 1997) catalogue No. 152, p. 245, ill. 72, p. 258; details regarding title and dating in Davis (Lit 1995) p. 333, endnote 234<\/li>\n
  18. Reitsma (Lit 2008, Dutch edition), p. 234 and p. 232 footnote 20: death of Philip Hendriks between 1711 and by January 1714<\/li>\n
  19. Davis (Lit 1995) p. 201; Stuldreher-Nienhuis (Lit 1944), p. 132f, Endnote 12: An entry for a marriage was found neither in the marriage register in Amsterdam nor in Frankfurt a. M. nor in Nuremberg.<\/li>\n
  20. Reitsma (Lit 2008) p. 235ff; maybe descendants of her four children are still living in Russia or in other countries<\/li>\n
  21. Castellani (Kun 2003), p. 182<\/li>\n
  22. Reitsma (Lit 2008) p. 237, maybe it was art inherited from her sister Johanna Helena who had died in 1728.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"N\u00fcrnberg - Frankfurt - Friesland - Amsterdam - Paramaribo - Amsterdam - St. Petersburg Dorothea Maria Gr\u00e4ffin (1678-1743) Die j\u00fcngere Schwester hatte eine viel unruhigere Kindheit. Wichtige ihrer Entwicklungsjahre fallen in die Zeit bei der Labadistengemeinde. Dort wurden die Kinder in eigenen Gruppen untergebracht, um mit gro\u00dfer Strenge zu gottesf\u00fcrchtigen Menschen erzogen zu [...]","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":23,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4148","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nDie j\u00fcngere Tochter - merianin.de<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/merianin.de\/en\/home\/juengere-tochter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Die j\u00fcngere Tochter - merianin.de\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/merianin.de\/en\/home\/juengere-tochter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"merianin.de\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-17T14:58:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/merianin.de\/en\/home\/juengere-tochter\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/merianin.de\/en\/home\/juengere-tochter\/\",\"name\":\"Die j\u00fcngere Tochter - 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