Abraham Mignon
Marrel's stepdaughter Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), daughter of the engraver Matthew Merian, who lived with Marrel and thus studied with Mignon, achieved distinction as a flower painter. Besides Merian, his other pupil was Ernst Stuven. He left two daughters when he died; Catharina and Anna.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Jan Goedart had described and depicted the life stages of European moths and butterflies before her, but Merian's "invention" was the detailed study of species, their life-cycle and habitat. Goedart had documented species by depicting one adult, a pupa and one larvae. Merian depicted the physical differences between male and female adults, showed wings in different positions and the different colouring on each side of the wing. She also documented the extended proboscis of feeding insects. The first plate in her 1679 "Caterpillars" detailed the life cycle of the silkworm moth. Starting in the right-hand corner with eggs, progressing with a hatching larva and several moults of the growing larvae. Goedart had not included eggs in his images of the life stages of European moths and butterflies, because he had believed that caterpillars were generated from water. When Merian published her study of insects it was still widely believed that insects were spontaneously generated. Merian's discoveries were made independently and supported the findings of Francesco Redi, Marcello Malpighi and Jan Swammerdam.