Discovery and Empire: The botanical works of Caspar Commelin and Maria Sibylla Merian

A blog by Verity Burton, placement student, BA Art History.

The John Rylands Library holds a remarkable collection of rare books that can be consulted in its specialist Reading Rooms. Among the most visually striking are its botanical works, particularly those produced during the Dutch Golden Age (1588 to 1702). Two especially compelling examples are Caspar Commelin’sPraeludia Botanica (1703), and a 2006 Folio Society facsimile of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705). The former has been recently obtained on deposit through the Rylands’ partnership with Dr Williams’s Library, a collaboration that has brought together two of the finest collections of Christian nonconformist religious and social history in the world.

Although very different in style, these two books reflect the scientific discoveries of the Dutch Golden Age while also prompting important questions about the inextricable relationship between botanical discovery, empire and exploitation.

Caspar Commelin and the Century Plant

Caspar Commelin (1668-1731) was a renowned Dutch botanist and director of the Amsterdam Hortus Botanicus, a garden founded by his uncle Jan Commelin. His text, Praeludia Botanica ad publicas plantarum exoticarum, was intended to accompany public viewings of the ‘exotic’ plants in the botanical garden. This work represents the institutional and medicinal aspect of Dutch botanical science. The illustrations are orderly and monochrome, reflecting a focus on scientific classification. One notable entry features a large fold-out image of an Aloe Americana Polygona, commonly known as the Century Plant. The plant earned this name because it was believed to flower around once every hundred years. Commelin recorded the plant’s remarkable anthesis (flowering) in Amsterdam in 1702. The plant’s dramatic flowering is intensified in Commelin’s illustration through careful tonal contrast and attention to structure. This bloom generated great excitement across the city and symbolised the perceived success of Dutch global botanical exploration, as ‘exotic’ species from the Americas were now being cultivated in European gardens.

Maria Sibylla Merian’s Independent Ecosystems  

Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was a pioneering naturalist whose scientific illustrations transformed botanical and entomological art. She worked closely with Commelin and credited her access to his array of exotic plant collections for “fuelling her curiosity about Surinamese flora and fauna”. This ultimately inspired her self-funded voyage in 1699 to document the vibrant biota of the Dutch colony in South America.  

Her observations culminated in the publication of Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium in 1705. The Rylands’s copy is a modern facsimile produced by the Folio Society in 2006. Before the publication of Merian’s Metamorphosis, portrayals of ‘New World’ botanicals were predominantly focused on scientific classification, often neglecting the broader ecological relationships between species. In comparison, Merian’s dynamic prints portray insects, plants and animals together, emphasising their life cycles and interdependence on one another.

One of the most poignant illustrations is Plate 18, a frenetic print that surrounds a Surinamese Guava tree. Its perforated leaves, defoliated by army and leaf-cutter ants, appear throughout the image. The scene is further animated by the presence of a striking ruby-topaz hummingbird, which has been ensnared by a pink-toe tarantula. Kay Etheridge comments on the legacy of the print, suggesting that it was “an early precursor to countless images of interactions between animals involving struggle and conflict.” As such, Merian’s observational gaze is suggestive of an early ecological consciousness that anticipates Enlightenment naturalism.

Botany and Empire

The Dutch Golden Age of botany was inseparable from global trade networks built on colonial extraction, particularly those of the Dutch East India Company. Botanical gardens served as centres for exhibiting these profitable species, while illustrated books circulated an economy and knowledge that inadvertently supported imperial exploitation. Plants held significance beyond their material value and often served as commercial commodities, signifying wealth and global reach.

Scholars such as Tomomi Kinukawa note that while Merian criticised the monoculture of sugar plantations, which depended on enslaved labour, she also participated in this very system, which exploited native resources for profit. Her work, therefore, exists within a complex historical paradox. It both took part in the European commodification of ‘exotic’ South American biota and simultaneously shifted the attention away from the preconceived plantation monoculture, towards ecological biodiversity.

 Viewing these two texts today raises important questions. Whose lands and labour made this economy of knowledge possible? To what extent was the collection and dissemination of such knowledge ethical? How should we critically assess artworks that are inseparable from colonialist narratives?

Visiting the Rylands Research Room

If you would like to explore these works or any others for yourself, The John Rylands Library Research Room is a wonderful place for research; see here for more details. Start by searching the library catalogue to find the item you’re interested in and note its reference number. Then complete the online booking form, allowing up to 3 working days for processing. You will then receive a confirmation email with all the details of your visit. When you arrive, don’t forget to bring photo ID and a pencil (pens are not allowed in the reading room). The friendly staff are on hand to help with any handling guidance, including using book supports and snake weights. It’s a welcoming research space that encourages discovery and meaningful engagement with the collections.

Bibliography

Bleichmar, Daniela. Visual Voyages: Images of Latin American Nature from Columbus to Darwin. Yale University Press, 2017.

Blumenthal, Hannah. “A Taste for Exotica: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium.” Gastronomica 6, no. 4 (2006).

Commelin, Caspar. Praeludia Botanica: Aloe Americana Polygona. 1703. Dr. Williams’s Library Collection, John Rylands Library, University of Manchester Special Collections, 1012.M.14.

Etheridge, Kay. “The History and Influence of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Bird-Eating Tarantula: Circulating Images and the Production of Natural Knowledge.” In Global Scientific Practice in an Age of Nations, 1750–1850, edited by Patrick Manning and Daniel Rood, 97–118. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016.

Huigen, Siegfried, Jan L. de Jong, and Elmer Kolfin. The Dutch Trading Companies as Knowledge Networks. Brill, 2010.

Kinukawa, Tomomi. “Science and Whiteness as Property in the Dutch Atlantic World: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium (1705).” Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 3 (2012).

Merian, Maria Sibylla. The Surinam Album. Edited by Julie M. V. Harvey and David Eccles. London: British Museum Trustees and Folio Society, 2006. University of Manchester Special Collections, R208869.