Maria Sibylla Merian was born in Frankfurt in 1647 as the daughter of Matthaeus Merian, an engraver and publisher, and Johanna Sibylla Heim. After the death of Merian’s father, when she was three ...

Merian was born in 1647, the ninth child of well-known German illustrator Matthäus Merian, who died when she was three. As a child she eagerly read books about natural history, ...