A PAIR OF RARE BUE AND WHITE 'MARIA SYBILLE MERIAN' BOTANICAL PLATES Qianlong period, circa 1740 Each boldly painted and gilt at the center with a large botanical cluster incorporating elements of published designs by the botanical illustrator Maria Sybille Merian, depicting iris, butterflies and caterpillars, the well and broad rim also with unusual variants of well-established standard designs. 10¼in (25.5cm) diam (2). Footnotes: 乾隆時期 約1740年 青花描金《瑪麗亞·西碧拉·梅里安》草蟲圖盤一對 Published Cohen & Cohen, A Game of Bowls, Gent, 2014, p. 33, no. 24 出版： 倫敦Cohen & Cohen古董行，《A Game of Bowls》，根特，2014年，頁33，圖版編號24 Elements of the central image are taken and combined from designs by Maria Sybille Merian (1647-1717), a remarkable Frankfurt-born German natural historian and botanical artist who first traveled to the Dutch West Indies in 1688. The origins of this design were discovered by C. Jacob-Hanson, 'Maria Sibylla Merian: artist and naturalist', and published in the Magazine Antiques, August 2000, pp. 174-183, no. 2. In 1699 Merian and her second daughter Dorothea Maria left Amsterdam (her adopted home after getting divorced in Germany), for a projected five-year-long expedition to Suriname, located on the northern coast of South America. The voyage afforded Merian a unique opportunity to explore new species of insects and plants. The two women settled in at Paramaribo and together collected, studied, and composed illustrations of the jungle's plants, insects, and other animals. After less than two years, however, illness forced Merian to return to Amsterdam. In 1705 she published Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium ('The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname'). Arguably the most important work of her career, it included some 60 engravings illustrating the different stages of development that she had observed in Suriname's insects. Metamorphosis depicted the insects on and around their host plants and included text describing each stage of development. She later published a book of her drawings, Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium published in Holland in 1705 and in France in 1771. At least four parts of the decoration on this pair of plates are derived from different plates in her third Raupenbuch (caterpillar book) first published in 1717. The iris is taken from plate 20 (CXXI in the 1730 edition) and the anemone from plate 34 (CXXXV). The cinnabar moth is similar to one in plate 28 (CXXIX) and the larger caterpillar on the anemone is taken from plate 39 (CXL) originally depicted on the willow branch. The smaller caterpillar is probably from plate CXIII. The designs in the narrow well and on the broad flat rim are also unusual, apparently closely relating to those on an Imperial porcelain vase, now on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which bears an Imperial Qianlong mark and is considered to date from about 1740. This also has the iris and anemone derived from Merian's prints, though the other flowers and butterflies are in a more Chinese style. This suggests a previous unconsidered artistic interaction and exchange, perhaps vey infrequently, between Imperial ceramic workshops in Jingdezhen and those making porcelains for the export market. References: for similar examples in blue and white see Cohen & Cohen, 2006, no. 32, a later tureen and cover with the same design, and 2014, 58-57; and for famille rose enameled examples, see Peabody Essex Museum, illustrated by Sargent, 2012, no, 120, p. 245, where he also records other related Merian-decorated wares; Howard & Ayers, 1978, no. 298, p. 304 for an enameled dinner plate; Howard, 1994, no. 60, p. 78; Jörg, 1997, fig. 334, p. 287; and Cohen & Cohen, 2005, no. 11, for a large charger, and also 2006, no. 32.