Where was Maria Sibylla Merian born?
Maria Sibylla Merian
Maria Sibylla Merian (2 April 164713 January 1717) was a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator, a descendant of the Frankfurt branch of the Swiss Merian family. Merian was one of the first naturalists to observe insects directly.
Marie Bethell Beauclerc
Marie Bethell Beauclerc was born in London in 1845 as Maria Bethell. When she was around four years old, she and her older twin siblings Richard and Elizabeth, were sent from London to a boarding school near Bath. By this time Maria Bethell's surname and the surname of her siblings, had been changed to Beauclerc. The children's father, Richard Bethell, died when Maria was five years old however the reason for the name change of Maria, Richard and Elizabeth from Bethell to Beauclerc is unknown. Maria Beauclerc attended Weston Boarding Schools near Bath until circumstances forced her to leave school at age nine. At age twelve she began teaching herself shorthand from a manual which she found in some waste paper. The manual entitled "The Phonographic Teacher", was written by Isaac Pitman (knighted in 1894). On her thirteenth birthday, Maria Beauclerc and her mother moved to Birmingham where she continued her studies through a member of the Phonetic Society in Bath who corrected her exercises through the post. The addition of Bethell to the name Beauclerc appeared for the first time in the title of a biography entitled " Marie Bethell Beauclerc" in "The Phonetic Journal" Sept. 1891.
Maria Wiedmaier
Maria Siegloch was born in Zuffenhausen, a quarter of Stuttgart on the city's north side. The third of her parents' seven recorded children, she was born into a "railway family". Between 1910 and 1916 she worked at the shoe factory in nearby Kornwestheim. Meanwhile, war broke out in 1914, and from 1916 she was working at a munitions factory in Feuerbach. It was here that she met Albert Volz, a co-worker whom she married that same year.
At the end of 1918 she joined the Independent Social Democratic Party (""Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands"" / USPD) which had broken away from the mainstream Social Democratic Party (SPD) following vigorous internal party disagreement over whether or not to support funding for the war. When the USPD in turn splintered she was a member of the left wing majority who moved across to the newly emerging Communist Party. Together with Heinrich Rau and she was a co-founder, in 1923, of the Communist Party's Zuffenhausen branch.
Caterpillar
The role of caterpillars in the life stages of butterflies was badly understood. In 1679 Maria Sibylla Merian published the first volume of "The Caterpillars' Marvelous Transformation and Strange Floral Food", which contained 50 illustrations and a description of insects, moths, butterflies and their larvae. An earlier popular publication on moths and butterflies, and their caterpillars, by Jan Goedart had not included eggs in the life stages of European moths and butterflies, because he had believed that caterpillars were generated from water. When Merian published her study of caterpillars it was still widely believed that insects were spontaneously generated. Merian's illustrations supported the findings of Francesco Redi, Marcello Malpighi and Jan Swammerdam.
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
Today, while Merian has experienced reinvigorated fame in the eyes of the art and science communities, some of her work has finally been accurately re-attributed to her daughters, Dorothea and Johanna. Joanna Helena Herolt often did not receive credit for her artwork because they were created in collaboration with her mother. Today her works are in the process of recovery. Similarly, Dorothea Maria Graff's images have only recently been accredited to the German painter: Sam Segal has re-attributed 30 or 91 folios in the British Museum.
Women in science
A founder of modern botany and zoology, the German Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717), spent her life investigating nature. When she was thirteen, Sibylla began growing caterpillars and studying their metamorphosis into butterflies. She kept a "Study Book" which recorded her investigations into natural philosophy. In her first publication, "The New Book of Flowers", she used imagery to catalog the lives of plants and insects. After her husband died, and her brief stint of living in Siewert, she and her daughter journeyed to Paramaribo for two years to observe insects, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. She returned to Amsterdam and published "The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname", which "revealed to Europeans for the first time the astonishing diversity of the rain forest." She was a botanist and entomologist who was known for her artistic illustrations of plants and insects. Uncommon for that era, she traveled to South America and Surinam, where, assisted by her daughters, she illustrated the plant and animal life of those regions.
Maria Barbella
Maria Barbella was born in Ferrandina, Basilicata, Italy. Her family immigrated to Mulberry Bend, New York in 1892. After living in the United States for nearly a year, Maria Barbella met Domenico Cataldo, who was from the same region of Italy. She worked in a factory and every day she would pass by Cataldo’s shoeshine booth. They spent lots of time together but these meetings were kept a secret from Michele Barbella, Maria's overprotective father. Michele found out about Domenico and he forbade Maria from ever seeing or speaking to him again. Domenico continued to pursue Maria until she finally gave in and agreed to meet with him again.
Kersti Merilaas
Kersti Merilaas was born Eugenie Moorberg in Narva, Estonia shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. She spent her early childhood in St. Petersburg, Russia with her mother, Anna Moorberg and sister. The family returned to Estonia in 1917 because of the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. From 1921 to 1927 she attended school in the village of Kiltsi, then furthered her studies in Väike-Maarja and Rakvere in Lääne-Viru County. In 1932 she completed high school in Tapa, Estonia.
Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda
She was born in Pinar del Río, Cuba, and grew up in Puerto Rico. She has an M.A. in English from the University of Oklahoma and a Bachelors in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. A freelance writer since 1981, she is the author of several books and has been published regularly in numerous national and regional periodicals and newspapers, including "The New York Times," "Catholic Digest", "U.S. Catholic", "Our Sunday Visitor", "The Oklahoman", "'," 'St. Anthony Messenger" and "The Lutheran". She and her husband Michael live in Norman, Oklahoma. They have four adult children. She blogs at "Day by Day with María".
Maria Kuryluk
Maria Kuryluk, called Mia by her family and friends, was born Miriam Kohany in an assimilated Jewish family in Bielsko-Biała, Silesia, and died in Warsaw. She was the eldest daughter of the merchant Herman Kohany (1882–1942) who perished in the Holocaust under unknown circumstances, and Paulina Kohany, née Raaber (1882–1942), a porcelain designer in her youth, who was killed along with her younger daughter Hilde Kohany (1920–1942) in Treblinka. Miriam's older brother Oscar survived the war in the Soviet Union and in 1950 emigrated with his family from Poland to Israel.
Maria Czaplicka
Maria Antonina Czaplicka (25 October 1884 – 27 May 1921), also referred to as Marya Antonina Czaplicka and Marie Antoinette Czaplicka, was a Polish cultural anthropologist who is best known for her ethnography of Siberian shamanism. Czaplicka's research survives in three major works: her studies in "Aboriginal Siberia" (1914); a travelogue published as "My Siberian Year" (1916); and a set of lectures published as "The Turks of Central Asia" (1919). Curzon Press republished all three volumes, plus a fourth volume of articles and letters, in 1999.
Catasticta sibyllae
The name honors Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th century European naturalist and entomologist who studied butterflies in South America.
Maria Leach
Born in New York City, Maria Leach was the former Alice-Mary Doane, daughter of Benjamin H. Doane and Mary (Davis) Doane. Her father was a native of Nova Scotia, one of Canada's three Maritime provinces. Born in Barrington, in Shelburne County, he was a descendent of the venerable family called Doane (an Anglicized form of a Gaelic name common in southern Ireland since the 1500s). In Nova Scotia he had connections to seafaring through his own father, a ship's captain. In the late 1870s or early 1880s, Benjamin Doane and his wife Mary, a native of South Carolina and an unreconstructed Rebel, moved to New York and established a home in Manhattan, where they lived for some years and raised their children.
Maria Sibylla Merian
The drawings were decorative and not all were drawn based on observation. Some of the flowers in the three-volume series appear to be based on drawings by Nicolas Robert and her step-father Jacob Marrel. Merian included insects among the flowers, again she may not have observed them all herself and some may be copies of drawings by Jacob Hoefnagel. The single flowers, wreaths, nosegays and bouquets in the three volumes would provide patterns for artists and embroiderers. Embroidery was at the time an essential part of the education that privileged young women received in Europe. Copying from other artists was an essential part of an artists training at the time. Her compositions resemble the compartment style of the scrolling stem embroidery designs that were common in Europe at the time. Butterflies and damselflies interplayed with plants, reflecting the decorative compositions of Hoefnagel. Her subsequent "Raupen" books would also be used at patterns for paintings, drawings and sewing.
Mary of Egypt
Saint Mary, also known as Maria Aegyptiaca, was born somewhere in the Province of Egypt, and at the age of twelve she ran away from her parents to the city of Alexandria. Here she lived an extremely dissolute life. In her "Vita" it states that she often refused the money offered for her sexual favors, as she was driven "by an insatiable and an irrepressible passion," and that she mainly lived by begging, supplemented by spinning flax.
Mary Easton Sibley
Once Bethany House closed in 1868, Mary moved back to St. Charles at Linden Wood. Near the end of her life, Mary became involved in the Second Adventist Movement . In 1873, Mary received a letter from a Japanese man named Isaac K. Yokoyama who requested that she send educators to Japan who could also spread Christianity. In her mid 70s, Mary took it upon herself to serve as a missionary/educator and set out for the West Coast, en route to Japan. Mary left from New York City by boat to Panama, crossed the isthmus, and travelled to California. Mary became ill before she could board the ship for Japan. On June 20, 1878, Mary Sibley died at the age of 78. She is buried with her family in a cemetery located at Lindenwood University.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Merian arrived on 18/19 September in Surinam, and met with the governor Paulus van der Veen. She worked for two years, traveling around the colony and sketching local animals and plants. She recorded local native names for the plants and described local uses.
Maria Morena (actress)
Maria Morena (February 20, 1929 – February 22, 2003) was active in her career in theater and film from 1950 to 1962. Among her accomplishments as an actress she starred in the film "Sob o Céu da Bahia", the Brazilian adventure film directed by Ernesto Remani awarded an entry into the 9th Cannes Film Festival in 1956. Her casting photos may be accessed by the web site of de Conteúdos Culturais, of Brazil.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In 2018 a rare butterfly, "Catasticta sibyllae" was named after her.
Argentine black and white tegu
The specific name, "merianae", is in honor of German-born naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian.
Dorothea Maria Graff
Todd, Kim. "Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717): An Early Investigator Of Parasitoids And Phenotypic Plasticity." "Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews" 4.2 (2011): 131-144. "Academic Search Complete". Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In Wieuwerd the Labadists engaged in printing and many other occupations, including farming and milling. At its peak, the religious community numbered around 600 with many more adherents further afield. Visitors came from England, Italy, Poland and elsewhere, but not all approved of the strict discipline, separatism and community property. Merian's husband was refused by the Labadists, but came back twice.
Maria Taylor Beale
She was born Maria Taylor in Richmond, Virginia, in 1894, and studied art in Paris. She married Charles Willing Beale, who was also an author, on January 25, 1872, and lived in Arden, North Carolina (which they helped found and which her husband named after the woods in William Shakespeare's "As You Like It"). She died in Arden on January 21, 1929, and is buried with her husband at Calvary Episcopal Church Cemetery in Fletcher, North Carolina.
Maria Sibylla Merian
The renewed scientific and artistic interest in her work was triggered in part by a number of scholars who examined collection of her works, such as the one in Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen. In 2005, a modern research vessel named Maria S. Merian was launched at Warnemünde, Germany. In 2016, Merian's "Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium" was re-published with updated scientific descriptions and, in June 2017, a symposium was held in her honour in Amsterdam. In March 2017, the Lloyd Library and Museum hosted a "Off the Page", an exhibit rendering many of Merian's illustrations as 3D sculptures with preserved insects, plants, and taxidermy specimens.
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.
Princess Maria Amalia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1818–1857)
Princess Maria Amalia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (Italian: "Maria Amalia di Borbone, Principessa di Borbone delle Due Sicilie") (25 February 1818 in Pozzuoli, Two Sicilies – 6 November 1857 in Madrid, Spain) was a Princess of Bourbon-Two Sicilies by birth and an Infanta of Portugal and Spain through her marriage to Infante Sebastian of Portugal and Spain.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Among her most significant contribution to science is the pairing of each larval lepidopteran, which she observed with a plant on which it feeds. She collected and kept caterpillars and conducted experiments to confirm her observations. She noted "caterpillars which fed on one flowering plant only, would feed on that one alone, and soon died if I did not provide it for them." She documented that some caterpillars would feed on more than one plant, but some only did so if they were deprived of their preferred host plant. Eventually the importance of the plant-host association was recognised and in the early taxonomy of moths and butterflies the species were given names that reflected the plants on which the larvae were found. Today the science of ecology focuses on understanding animals' feeding preferences and which plants play a critical role in the food chain.
Maria Sibylla Merian
When Merian moved to Amsterdam in 1691 she made the acquaintance of several naturalists. Amsterdam was the centre of the Dutch Golden Age and a nexus for science, art and trade. When settling in, Merian found support from the artist Michiel van Musscher, who lived not far away. She took in students, one being Rachel Ruysch, daughter of the anatomist and physician Frederick Ruysch. Merian became an important figure among Amsterdam's botanists, scientists and collectors. Her "Caterpillars" books were getting noticed among the scientific community in England, she continued to breed caterpillars at home and ventured into the country side surrounding Amsterdam to study ants. Among her friends were the director of the Amsterdam Botanical Garden Caspar Commelin, the mayor of Amsterdam and president of the Dutch East India Company Nicolas Witsen, the professor of medicine Fredericus Ruysch, and the merchant and collector Levinus Vincent.
Maria Bello
Bello was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to Kathy, a school nurse and teacher, and Joe Bello, a contractor. Her father is Italian American, with roots in Montella, Italy, and her mother is Polish American. She grew up in a working-class Roman Catholic family and graduated from Archbishop John Carroll High School in Radnor, Pennsylvania. She majored in political science at Villanova University. Following graduation, Bello honed her acting skills in a number of New York theater productions.
Maria Borelius
Maria Sigrid Astrid Borelius is a Swedish born former Minister for Foreign Trade, Science journalist and entrepreneur, working as advisor to global companies, academies and institutions. Maria is a member of the advisory council of Open Europe, a European think tank with offices in London, Brussels and Berlin promoting ideas for economic and political reform of the European Union. Maria is also a Partner with Living Waters, a London-based consultancy focusing on CSR, public affairs and developing fundraising strategies. She is an advisor to the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel prize in medicine, and to Lund University and works as a columnist with the Swedish business daily, Dagens Industri, mainly covering areas of Entrepreneurship, Science, research, globalization and politics.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Merian first made a name for herself as an botanical artist. In 1675 she started to publish a three volume series, each with 12 plates depicting flowers. In 1680 she published "Neues Blumenbuch", combining the series.
Maria W. Stewart
She was born Maria Miller, the child of free African-American parents in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1803. At the age of five she lost both parents and was sent to live with a minister and his family. She continued as a servant in that home until she was 15, without receiving any formal education. Between the ages of 15 and 20, Maria attended Sabbath School before church service on Sundays and developed a lifelong affinity for religious work.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In June 1701 malaria forced her to return to the Dutch Republic. Back in the Netherlands Merian opened a shop. She sold specimens she had collected and engravings of plant and animal life in Suriname. In 1705, she published a book "Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium" about the insects of Suriname.
Murder of Maria Colwell
Maria was born on 26 March 1965. When she was a few months old her father Raymond Colwell died and as a result Maria and her siblings were all placed in foster care. At three months old she was placed with her aunt and uncle, Doris and Bob Cooper. There she was said to be very happy and well looked after.
Her situation changed drastically when on 22 October 1971 she returned to live with her biological mother Pauline Kepple and her partner William Kepple on the Whitehawk council estate in Brighton, England.
Santo Daime hymns
Maria Marques Vieira was born in Belém do Pará, in 1917. She was very young when she moved with her family to Rio Branco, Acre, where she met Mestre Irineu, in the early 1930s. She was sallow and blond with white skin. Maria Damião, as she was known, married and had seven children (one adopted) but lost her husband early. She worked hard to support her family but had many difficulties in her material life, as in her works with Santo Daime. She died of pneumonia, aged just 32 years, on 2 April 1949.
Maria Sibylla Merian
The bird-eating spider "Avicularia merianae" was named in her honour, referencing her research on spiders. The spider "Metellina merianae" was named after her in 2017. The Argentine black-and-white tegu lizard has been named "Salvator merianae". The cane toad was named "Rhinella merianae". A snail with no common name was named "Coquandiella meriana". The Madagascan African stonechat bird was given the name "Saxicola torquatus sibilla".
Maria Sibylla Merian
Her drawings of Surinam animal and plant life is so accurate that entomologists who analysed her study journal from the expedition could identify 73 percent of the lepidopterans by their genus and 66 percent as exact species. Some of the animals and plants she drew are likely to have since become extinct. Her drawings are part of the scientific exploration by Europeans. Early taxonomy of tropical plants relied on images or specimens. Following her return to Amsterdam the images she had made were used by Carl Linnaeus and others to identify one hundred or so new species. At the time there was no standardised scientific terminology to name plants and animals, so Merian used common everyday European words to describe Surinam's animals, such as silkworm or wasp. As such she referred to butterflies as "summer birds". However, based on her drawings Linnaeus classified Surinam's animals in 1735 and 1753. He used Merian's drawings to describe 56 animals and 39 plants, including the tarantula. In reference to her research Linnaeus abbreviated her name into "Mer.sruin" for animals from Surinam, and "Mer.eur" for European insects.
Mary of Jesus of Ágreda
She was born María Coronel y de Arana, the daughter of Francisco Coronel, a "converso" of Jewish descent, and Catalina de Arana, in Ágreda, a town located in the Province of Soria. The couple had 11 children, of whom only four survived into adulthood: Francisco, José, María and Jerónima. Maria later described her mother as the more lively of the two, though both were very fervent in their faith. The family had close ties with the Franciscan friars of the Friary of San Julián, which lay on the outskirts of the town. Either the mother would go to the friary with her children for Mass and confession, or the friars would visit the family home. Nonetheless, Mary later recalled that, as a very young child, she felt her parents were very hard on her.
Maria Ressa
Maria studied molecular biology and theater as an undergraduate at Princeton University, where she graduated "cum laude" with a BA degree in English. She then was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for political theater, with which she completed her master's at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Mary Easton Sibley
Mary Sibley was born in Rome, New York on January 24, 1800, the daughter of Rufus Easton and Alby Abial Easton. She was the first of eleven children for the Easton family. Mary's father's family was from England and settled in Connecticut in the 1640s. The family helped found Hartford, Connecticut. Her mother's family was also from an educated colonial family. The two met in New York and married in 1798, when Alby was only fifteen years old.
Black British
In 2004, a poll found that people considered the Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole to be the greatest Black Briton. Seacole was born in Jamaica in 1805 to a white father and black mother. A statue of her, designed by Martin Jennings, was unveiled in the grounds of St. Thomas' Hospital opposite the Houses of Parliament in London in June 2016, following a 12-year campaign that raised £500,000 to honour her.
Meriam Bellina
Ellisa Meriam Bellina Maria Bamboe (born 10 April 1965), better known as Meriam Bellina, is an Indonesian actress who has won three Citra Awards and acted in more than 50 films. Born and raised in Bandung, she dropped out of senior high school to begin a career as a model and actress. By the mid-1980s she was recognised as a "sex bomb" and "fantasy girl". During the 1990s she focused mostly on television series, but has produced several feature films since 2007.
Maria Anna of Naples and Sicily
Maria Anna was born at the Royal Palace in Naples. Her father was Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, the third son and ninth child of Charles III of Spain and Maria Amalia of Saxony. Her mother was the Archduchess of Austria, the tenth daughter and thirteenth child of the famous Maria Theresa of Austria and her husband, Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. She was baptised during the first year of her life. Her full name was "Maria Anna Giuseppa Antoinette Francesca Gaetana Teresa Amalia Clementina", her first four names were the same as her mother's eldest sister Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria (1738-1789). She was born and died while her father was still styled "Duke of Calabria". She was then styled "Princess of Naples and Sicily". Her older siblings were Maria Theresa, namesake of her grandmother, born in 1772; Maria Luisa, born in 1773 and Carlo, Duke of Calabria, born just ten months before her. He also died in childhood, yet Maria Anna outlived him.
Londa Schiebinger
Schiebinger tells the remarkable story of Maria Sibylla Merian, one of the few European women to voyage for science in the eighteenth century. In a moving passage in her magnificent 1705 "Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium", the German-born naturalist Merian recorded how the Indian and African slave populations in Surinam, then a Dutch colony, used the seeds of a plant she identified as the flos pavonis, literally ‘peacock flower’, as an abortifacient to abort their children so they would not become slaves like themselves. This book reveals how gender relations in Europe and its West Indian colonies influenced what European bioprospectors collected—and failed to collect—as they entered the rich knowledge traditions of the Caribbean. As Schiebinger tells, abortifacients were a body of knowledge that did not circulate freely between the West Indies and Europe. Trade winds of prevailing opinion impeded shiploads of New World abortifacients and knowledge of their use from ever reaching Europe.
Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain
She was born at the Royal Alcázar of Seville in Seville and was the youngest daughter of Philip V of Spain and of his second wife Elisabeth Farnese. She was born in Seville during the signing of the Treaty of Seville which ended the Anglo-Spanish War. She spent her infancy in the city of her birth before moving to Madrid in 1733. She was baptised with the names "María Antonia" along with "Fernanda" in honour of her half brother, then the heir to the throne. Variations in her name range from "Antonia Fernanda" and "Antonietta Ferdinanda". As a daughter of the King of Spain, she held the title of Infanta of Spain and style of Royal Highness.
Calliteara pudibunda
The Dutch common name for the moth ("Meriansborstel") is named for famous butterfly and insect painter Anna Maria Sibylla Merian.
Maria Reese
Maria Meyer was born at Michelbach, a village in the hills north of Trier, on the western edge of the Prussian Rhine province. Her father, Anton Meyer, was a primary/middle school teacher. Maria attended school locally and moved into a teachers' training college in Bonn. She took a permanent teaching post at in her home region. Early on she came into conflict with a schools inspector who asserted that she was not qualified to do the work of a chaplain because she was female. She increasingly came to reject the Catholicism with which she had grown up, turning to politics instead. The outbreak of war and the accompanying conscription of male teachers created a desperate shortage, and she took a new teaching post at Schladt in 1914. However, after three years she found herself condemned by a military court to dismissal from the profession and a five-month prison term because she was found to have been employing French prisoners of war. By the time the war ended in 1918 she was writing that she had a yearning for socialism which "might rescue humanity from penury and misery and more war". (""...die Sehnsucht nach dem Sozialismus, der die Menschheit von Not und Elend und vor weiteren Kriegen erretten sollte."")
Maria Sibylla Merian
Unlike other Dutch naturalists, Merian was not employed by a commercial enterprise or corporation. But her journey was partly financed by the directors of the Dutch West India Company. In her subsequent publication on the expedition Merian criticised the actions of the colonial merchants, saying that "the people there have no desire to investigate anything like that; indeed they mocked me for seeking anything other than sugar in the country." Merian also condemned the merchants’ treatment of slaves. She was given a slave helper for her research and the interaction she could thus have with the Amerindian and African slaves in the colony assisted her in researching the plants and animals of Surinam. Merian also took an interest in agriculture and lamented the colonial merchants' resistance to plant or export anything other than sugar. She later showcased the vegetables and fruits that could be found in Surinam, including the pineapple.
María Currea Manrique
María Currea Manrique was born on 28 May 1890 in Bogotá, Colombia to General Aníbal Currea and Hersilia Manrique de Currea. Because of her family's wealth, she traveled widely through Europe and the United States, learning other languages. Since women were forbidden higher education in Colombia at that time, she obtained a nursing degree from Presbyterian Hospital in New York City and then went on to study philosophy and humanities at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris earning a doctorate. Currea married Ruperto Aya, a veteran of the Thousand Days' War, who was instrumental in opening doors for women's rights. In 1930, a group of women, led by Georgina Fletcher attempted to gain citizens' rights for Colombian women. Up to that time women's wages were the property of their husbands, fathers or brothers and she had no guardianship over her children. The women were unsuccessful in 1930, but two years later, Aya introduced Currea to President Enrique Olaya Herrera, whom she and the other women pressured to help change the citizenship laws for women in Colombia. Passage of Law 28 in 1932 recognized women's citizenship for the first time, in Colombia.
Merian family
The younger Basel line includes a Frankfurt sub-branch founded by the engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593-1650), whose descendants became artists during the Baroque period and ran what became one of Europe's largest publishers in the 17th century. Matthäus Merian's daughter was the naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian.
Mariam Baouardy
Baouardy was born on 5 January 1846 (the eve of Epiphany) in the Galilean village of I'billin, the region of Southern Syria in the Ottoman Empire, now in Israel, to Giries (George) Baouardy and his wife, Mariam Chahine, both of Damascene ancestry. Mariam was their 13th child and first daughter, and none of her preceding brothers had survived infancy. She was born after the couple made a pilgrimage on foot to Bethlehem, some 70 miles away, out of desperation after the loss of their children. When they were later blessed with the birth of a daughter, they named her after the Virgin Mary, out of gratitude. She was joined by a new brother, Boulos, two years later.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In the last quarter of the 20th century, the work of Merian was re-evaluated, validated, and reprinted. Her portrait was printed on the 500 DM note before Germany converted to the euro. Her portrait has also appeared on a 0.40 DM stamp, released on 17 September 1987, and many schools are named after her. In the late 1980s Archiv imprint of the Polydor label issued a series of new recordings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano works performed on period instruments and featuring Merian's floral illustrations. She was honoured with a Google Doodle on 2 April 2013 to mark her 366th birth anniversary.
Maria Sibylla Merian
The exotic specimens on display in Amsterdam may have inspired her to travel to Surinam, but only interrupted her study of European insects briefly. Merian continued her collection and observation activities, adding plates to her "Caterpillars" books and updating the existing plates. She republished the two volumes in Dutch in 1713 and 1714 under the title "Der Rupsen". She extended her studies into flies and rewrote the preface to her books to eradicate any mention of spontaneous generation. She explained that flies emerged from a caterpillar pupa, and suggested that flies could be born from excrement. The 50 plates and descriptions of European insects that appear to have been intended for a third volume were published after her death by her daughters, who combined them with the 1713 editions to one large volume. A number of "Metamorphosis" editions were also published posthumously by her family, to which 12 additional plates were added. All but two appear to have been Merian's work.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In 1678, the family had moved to Frankfurt am Main, but her marriage was an unhappy one. She moved in with her mother, after her stepfather died in 1681. In 1683 she travelled to Gottorp and was attracted to the Labadists community in Holstein. In 1685 Merian travelled with her mother, husband and children to Friesland where her half-brother Caspar Merian had lived since 1677.
Marie Severin
Marie Severin was born in East Rockaway, New York, on Long Island, the second and last child of John Edward Severin, born in Oslo, Norway, who immigrated to the United States at age 3, and a mother, Marguerite (Powers) Severin, from Syracuse, New York, whose heritage was Irish. Her older brother, John Severin, was born in 1922. The family moved to Brooklyn, New York City, when Marie was 4. She attended a Catholic grammar school and then the all-girl Bishop McDonnell Memorial High School. The family lived in an apartment in the Bay Ridge neighborhood at the time; it is uncertain if this was the family's original Brooklyn locale from Severin's childhood or if the family moved to that neighborhood in the interim. Due to the high school's staggered schedule, Severin's class graduated in January 1948, rather than in mid-year as typical.
Maria Sibylla Merian
The universal classification system for all organisms was started by Carl Linnaeus about 30 years after Merian had published her research on Suriname. It is organised in five levels of kingdom, class, order, genus and species. After her death Merian became so renowned among biologists that number of taxa, and two genera, were named after her. Two butterflies have been named after her, the common postman butterfly "Heliconius melpomene meriana" and a split-banded owlet butterfly "Opsiphanes cassina merianae". The Cuban sphinx moth has been named "Erinnyis merianae". A bug with no common name has been named "Plisthenes merianae". A genus of mantises has been named "Sibylla".
Mary the Younger
Her family originated from Greater Armenia, where her father was among the local grandees. They had settled in Constantinople, probably at the start of the reign of Basil I the Macedonian (), who called her father along with other Armenian grandees to enter his service. Maria was born in 875, probably in Constantinople, shortly after the death of her father. She had four older siblings, two brothers and two sisters; the latter were already married, indicating that Maria was a late child of her parents. She was raised by her mother, and as soon as she was of age (), she married the "droungarios" Nikephoros, an acquaintance of her brother-in-law Bardas Bratzes. Nikephoros distinguished himself in the 894–896 war against the Bulgarians, and was rewarded with a posting (probably as commander) to the division ("tourma") of Bizye.
Maria Firmina dos Reis
Maria Firmina dos Reis was born in São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil. "At age five, her mother and relatives moved to Viamão where she attended school. In 1847, due to outstanding performance, she won a scholarship for further studies at the level of 'cadeira de primeiras letras' that prepared her to be a teacher."
She maintained the profession ″until her retirement in 1881″. "At the age of fifty-five, she founded a school for poor children."
Maria Marques
Maria Cecília Marques (born May 5, 1976 in Rio de Janeiro) is a female water polo player from Brazil, who won the bronze medal with the Brazil women's national water polo team at the 2003 Pan American Games. She played in a defending role in the national squad.
Maria of Swabia
Maria of Hohenstaufen was born in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy on 3 April 1201. She was the second daughter of Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina of Byzantium. In 1208, at the age of seven, Maria was left an orphan by the unexpected deaths of her parents. On 21 June, her father was murdered by Otto of Wittelsbach, and two months later her mother died after giving birth to a daughter, who did not live beyond early infancy.
Madre María Rosa
Not much is known about María. She was born in Madrid on January 14, 1660. Her parents were Joseph de Leon y Ayala and Estefania Muñoz. Her given name was Josepha de Leon y Ayala but changed it to Maria Rosa when she became a nun. This was a customary practice. She entered the Capuchin covenant at the age of seventeen in 1677. She was appointed first mother abbess of the new convent to be founded in Lima. Because of this, she left Spain never to return again in 1712 with four other founding nuns. She documented her whole journey almost day by day to leave her account for both her original convent back in Madrid and the new one in Lima. One month before her death, she stepped down from her position and her co-founder, María Gertrudis was elected abbess. She passed away August 14, 1716 at the age of fifty-six.
Michiel van Breda
Van Breda was born on 12 August 1775 in Cape Town. His parents were Pieter van Breda and Catharina Sophia Myburg. He married three times. Out of his marriages with Gesina van Reenen, Beatrix Elizabeth Lategan and Maria Adriana Smalberger he became the father of nine children. He died in Cape Town on 12 August 1847.
In 1817 van Breda was farming on Zoetendals Vallei farm in the region which is today called Overberg. He imported the Rambouillet Merino from France. Together with the Merino’s from Saxony in Germany, which he also imported, he created the South African Merino. He was the first person to start breeding with Merinos in South Africa. His partner was F.W.Reitz. A Merino is a sheep primarily breed for its wool. It is orgninally from Spain. The first Merinos date back to the 12th century. The sheep is particularly well adapted to low rainfall environments climates.
Maria Rye
She was born at 2 Lower James Street, Golden Square, in central London, on 31 March 1829. She was the eldest of the nine children of Edward Rye, solicitor and bibliophile, and Maria Tuppen. Edward Rye of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, was her grandfather. Of her brothers, Edward Caldwell Rye was an entomologist, and Walter Rye, solicitor, antiquary, and athlete, published works on Norfolk history and topography and was mayor of Norwich in 1908–9.
Maria Gisborne
Maria James, the daughter of an English merchant at Constantinople, was born in 1770, probably in England. When she was eight years old, her mother, who had been left in poverty, determined to rejoin her husband and sailed for Constantinople, only to discover that James had established a new household with the wife of one of his skippers. He persuaded his wife to return to England by promising an annuity, but had Maria kidnapped and concealed until her mother's departure. He subsequently brought her up with care, and gave her a good education. She showed a talent for painting, and grew up a beautiful and accomplished woman. Mary Shelley later hinted at sexual precocity, writing of Maria's upbringing that "she was left to run wild as she might, and at a very early age had gone through the romance of life". Jeremy Bentham met her at her father's house in Constantinople in 1785, accompanied her on the violin, and said that she was the only woman he had met who could keep time. Not long afterwards, she and her father moved to Rome.
Maria Sibylla Merian
I created the first classification for all the insects which had chrysalises, the daytime butterflies and the nighttime moths. The second classification is that of the maggots, worms, flies, and bees. I retained the indigenous names of the plants, because they were still in use in America by both the locals and the Indians.
Merian's drawings of plants, frogs, snakes, spiders, iguanas, and tropical beetles are still collected today by amateurs all over the world. The German word "Vogelspinne"—(a spider of the infraorder Mygalomorphae), translated literally as "bird spider"—probably has its origins in an engraving by Merian. The engraving, created from sketches drawn in Surinam, shows a large spider who had just captured a bird. In the same engraving and accompanying text Merian was the first European to describe both army ants and leaf cutter ants as well as their effect on other organisms. Merian's depictions of tropical ants were subsequently cited and copied by other artists. Her depictions of the struggle among organisms predates Charles Darwin and Lord Tennyson theories on the struggle for survival and evolution.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Merian received her artistic training from her stepfather, Jacob Marrel, a student of the still life painter Georg Flegel. Merian published her first book of natural illustrations in 1675. She had started to collect insects as an adolescent and at age thirteen she raised silk worms. In 1679 Merian published the first volume of a two-volume series on caterpillars, the second volume followed in 1683. Each volume contained 50 plates engraved and etched by Merian. Merian documented evidence on the process of metamorphosis and the plant hosts of 186 European insect species. Along with the illustrations Merian included a descriptions of their life cycles.
María Brito
Maria Brito was born in Havana Cuba in 1947. She and her brother left for the United States, when she was only thirteen, through an “underground railroad” like system called ‘Operation Pedro Pan’. This system allowed children from the communist island to flee. When she and her brother arrived in the United States they traveled to Miami, Florida and grew up in a Cuban immigrant community.She later attained her Masters and Bachelors in Fine Arts, and is now known as a Cuban- American artist specializing in painting, sculpture and installations.
Brito began showing her art in major venues in the early 1980s. After she started, she received significant national recognition. She later received commission to create a sculpture that would be shown in the Olympic Sculpture Park in South Korea and in 1990 her work was included in “The Decade Show.” In 2001, Brito was then invited to ceremonies with Laura Bush when the exhibit “Arte Latino” Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum” traveled to the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago.
Today, Brito still lives in the Cuban immigrant community that she lived in when she first traveled to the United States with her two sons. When she is not traveling with her art, she is an adjunct professor of art at Barry University in Miami.
Princess Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1822–1869)
Maria Carolina was born in Vienna on 26 April 1822, the only surviving child of Prince Leopold of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Prince of Salerno and his wife (and niece) Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria, daughter of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor.
Maria-Christina Oliveras
Born in New York City, Oliveras is first-generation American. The daughter of Beatrice, a nurse, and Luis Tomas, a hospital food service administrator, she grew up in the Bronx. She studied at Yale University, and received her B.A. with honors in Theater Studies. While there, she was an active participant in Yale Undergraduate theater, where she first met Alex Timbers, who she has subsequently collaborated with on a number of projects, most notably "Here Lies Love". She was also a member of the esteemed a cappella groups, SHADES (whose alumni include fellow Broadway colleagues, Anika Larsen and Lauren Worsham) and WHIM N' RHYTHM.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In Holland, with much astonishment what beautiful animals came from the East and West Indies. I was blessed with having been able to look at both the expensive collection of Doctor Nicolaas Witsen, mayor of Amsterdam and director of the East Indies society, and that of Mr. Jonas Witsen, secretary of Amsterdam. Moreover, I also saw the collections of Mr. Fredericus Ruysch, doctor of medicine and professor of anatomy and botany, Mr. Livinus Vincent, and many other people. In these collections I had found innumerable other insects, but found that their origin and their reproduction is unknown, it begs the question as to how they transform, starting from caterpillars and chrysalises and so on. All this has, at the same time, led me to undertake a long dreamed of journey to Suriname.
Sibylle of Jülich-Cleves-Berg
Sibylle of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Margravine of Burgau (26 August 1557 in Cleves – 1628 in Günzburg) was the daughter of Duke William the Rich and his second wife, Archduchess Maria of Austria.
Queen Fabiola of Belgium
Fabiola de Mora y Aragón was born in Madrid, Spain, at the Palacio Zurbano, the main residence of the Marqués de Casa Riera. She was the sixth of seven children of Don Gonzalo de Mora y Fernández y Riera y del Olmo, 4th Marqués de Casa Riera, 2nd Count of Mora (1887–1957), and his wife, Doña Blanca de Aragón y Carrillo de Albornoz y Barroeta-Aldamar y Elío (1892–1981), daughter of the 6th Marchioness of Casa Torres and Viscountess of Baiguer. Her godmother was Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain.
Maria Daelder
Maria Daelder was born in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She married the wealthy vine merchant Sibrant Valck (1632-1681) and settled in the newly founded Gothenburg in Sweden, where a great part of the inhabitants at this point was Dutch. Maria Daelder managed her own business separate from that of her husband; she imported and sold vine and textile and managed a flourishing banking business where she lend clients money for interest. Her business is evident from at least the years 1666–1676, from which her account books are preserved. Her business has been the object of research and are somewhat remarkable: according to the law of the time, a married woman was a legal minor under the guardianship of her husband and thus had no legal right to manage business of her own separate from her husband (though it was common for wives to assist their husband's in their business). Maria Daelder, however, appears to have managed her own affairs completely separated from her husband's, with her own account books and without his legal interference, evidently with his support. She was reportedly successful and left a fortune at her death.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In 1690, Merian's mother had died. A year later, she moved with her daughters to Amsterdam. In 1692, her husband divorced her. In Amsterdam the same year, her daughter Johanna married Jakob Hendrik Herolt, a successful merchant on Surinam, originally from Bacharach. The flower painter Rachel Ruysch became Merian's pupil. Merian made a living selling her paintings. She and her daughter Johanna sold flower pictures to art collector Agnes Block. By 1698 Merian lived in a well-furnished house on Kerkstraat.
Maria Sophia of Neuburg
Maria Sophia was born at the Schloss Benrath outside Düsseldorf in what is now Germany. Her father Philip William was the reigning Count Palatine of Neuburg. In 1685 he became Elector Palatine following the death of his cousin Charles II, an inheritance that greatly increased the family's status within Europe. In December 1676, Maria Sophia's sister Eleonore Magdalene was married to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I owing to the family's reputation as producing fertile women. After two marriages, Leopold had no living male heirs. The new Empress Eleonore Magdalene fulfilled her function and quickly mothered two future Holy Roman Emperors (Joseph I and Charles VI).
Sibylla of Anhalt
Sibylla was born in Bernburg in 1564. In 1577, her elder sister Anna Maria was relieved from her post as Imperial abbess of Gernrode and Frose in order to marry Joachim Frederick, eldest son and heir of the duke of Brieg; under pressure from her father, the Chapter elected Sibylla as her successor. Sibylla was confirmed in office by the emperor, Rudolph II. During her reign as abbess the only record of her activities comes from an abbey document in which she invests the widow of Stefan Molitor (the first Evangelical Superintendent of the abbey) with a piece of land.
Mercedes de Jesús Molina
Mercedes de Jesús Molina was born on 24 September 1828 in Baba, Los Ríos Province, Ecuador. She was the daughter of Miguel Molina y Arbeláez and Rosa Ayala y Aguilar. After the death of her father, two years later, Mercedes and her mother moved to Guayaquil. Then at the age of fifteen Mercedes suffered the death of her mother. A bad fall from a horse brought about her conversion to absolute piety and strict penance. From then on she devoted her life to care of abandoned children. She did this first as mother and teacher to orphans in Guayaquil then in Cuenca, where she shared a home with Saint Narcisa de Jesús. Mercedes later volunteered her services to the Jesuits to assist in the conversion of the Jivaroan peoples. After the missionaries had to give up their mission territory, Mercedes settled in Riobamba. There she took vows of poverty, chasity and obedience and founded the Sisters of Mariana de Jesús, named after Saint Mariana de Jesús, on 14 April 1873. This institute provided care orphans, converts, and women who had been released from prison. She died ten years later in Riobamba on 12 June 1883. Mercedes was beautified on 1 February 1985 by Pope John Paul II in Guayaquil.
Maria White Lowell
Maria White was born in Watertown, Massachusetts to a middle-class, intellectual family. She was raised under a strict ascetic discipline at an Ursuline Convent which was burned by a mob in 1834.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Merian also sold hand coloured editions of the Blumenbuch series. Merian's process of creating her art used vellum which she primed with a white coat. Because of the guild system women were not allowed to paint in oil. Merian painted with watercolors and gouache, instead.
Maria Amalia of Austria
Maria Amalia was born an Austrian Archduchess in Hofburg Palace, Vienna; about eleven weeks after the death of her infant brother Leopold Joseph, her parents' only son. Her mother was unable to conceive more children after Maria Amalia, supposedly because her father had contracted syphilis from one of his mistresses and passed the disease to his wife, rendering the Empress infertile. Maria Amalia's father had a long line of mistresses, both servants and nobles, and several illegitimate children. Her mother Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg was the sister of the Duchess of Modena and a very pious woman.
Morro da Mineira
Although called a "Mineira" (person from the state of Minas Gerais), Maria was actually born in Rio de Janeiro, near Cantagalo and Cordeiro around 1910. Her family moved in Minas Gerais when she was very young and resided in the Alto Jequitibá municipality. While living there, Maria met and married Laudelino César, with whom she had six children: Dario, Enéias, Ciro, Leone, Dedier and Aluizio. Maria and her family lived in a very rural region with few resources and life there was difficult. After years of struggle, they moved to Rio de Janeiro in search of a better life.
Johann Bernhard Merian
Johann Bernhard Merian or Jean-Bernard Mérian (28 September 1723, Liestal – 12 February 1807, Berlin) was a Swiss philosopher active in the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin.
Princess Maria Teresa of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1867–1909)
Princess "Maria Teresa" Maddalena of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (Full Italian name: "Principessa Maria Teresa Maddalena di Borbone delle Due Sicilie") (15 January 1867, Zürich, Switzerland – 1 March 1909, Cannes, France) was the only child of Prince Louis of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Trani (heir apparent of the defunct throne of the Two Sicilies) and his wife Duchess Mathilde Ludovika in Bavaria. Maria Teresa was a member of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and became a member of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen and titular Princess of Hohenzollern through her marriage to Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern (later Prince of Hohenzollern). She was called "Mädi" in the family and had a lifelong friendship with her cousin the Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Other women still-life painters, such as Merian's contemporary Margaretha de Heer, included insects in their floral pictures, but did not breed or study them. While women of Merian's day did collect butterflies, the amateur science of naturalism was practised by men. In 1679 she published her first work on insects, the first of a two-volume illustrated book focusing on insect metamorphosis.
Maria al-Qibtiyya
Maria bint Shamʿūn, better known as Maria al-Qibtiyya (), Maria Qubtiyya, or Maria the Copt, (died 637) was an Egyptian who, along with her sister Sirin, were sent to the Islamic prophet Muhammad in 628 as a gift by Muqawqis, a governor of Alexandria, Egypt during the territory's Persian occupation. She and her sister were slaves. Maria bore Muhammad a son, Ibrahim, who died as an infant.
Princess Maria Immaculata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1844–1899)
Princess Maria Immaculata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (Full Italian name: "Maria Immacolata Clementina, Principessa di Borbone delle Due Sicilie") (14 April 1844, Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies – 18 February 1899, Vienna, Austria) was fifth child and second-eldest daughter of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies and his wife Maria Theresa of Austria. Through her marriage to Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria, Maria Immaculata became an Austrian Archduchess.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In 1699 Merian travelled to Dutch Surinam to study and record the tropical insects. In 1705 she published "Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium". Few colour images of the "New World" were printed before 1700 and thus Merian's "Metamorphosis" has been credited with influencing a range of naturalist illustrators. Because of her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, she is considered by David Attenborough to be among the most significant contributors to the field of entomology. She was a leading entomologist of her time and she discovered many new facts about insect life through her studies.
Mariella Mehr
Mariella Mehr was born a member of the nomadic Yeniche people. She was a victim of the "Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse" (loosely translated, "Relief Organisation for Rural Street Children"), which separated Yeniche children from their parents. Mehr was moved between 16 orphanages and three reformatories as a child. She was committed to a mental institution four times and spent nineteen months in a women's prison.
Maria Sibylla Merian
Maria Sibylla Merian's father, the Swiss engraver and publisher Matthäus Merian the Elder, married her mother, his second wife, Johanna Sybilla Heyne, in 1646. Maria was born within the next year in 1647, making her his 9th child. Her father died in 1650, and in 1651 her mother remarried Jacob Marrel, the flower and still life painter. Marrel encouraged Merian to draw and paint. While he lived mostly in Holland, his pupil Abraham Mignon trained her. At the age of thirteen she painted her first images of insects and plants from specimens she had captured. Early on, she had access to many books about natural history. Regarding her youth, in the foreword to "Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium", Merian wrote:
Maria Clementina Sobieska
She was born on 18 July 1702 in Oława (Ohlau), Silesia, then part of the Holy Roman Empire and now in Poland. Her parents were James Louis Sobieski (1667–1737), the eldest son of King John III, and Countess Palatine Hedwig Elisabeth of Neuburg (1673–1722). Her older sister Maria Karolina (known as "Charlotte") was the Duchess of Bouillon by marriage.
Maria Sibylla Merian
The title page of her 1679 "Caterpillars" proudly proclaimed in German:
Maria Sibylla Merian
"Metamorphosis" and the tropical ants Merian documented were cited by the scientists René Antoine, August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof, Mark Catesby and George Edwards. Few colour images of the "New World" were printed before 1700 and thus Merian's "Metamorphosis" has been credited with influencing a range of naturalist illustrators. Merian also documented the medicinal use of plants and animals by the people of Surinam. She documented among others that the sap from a palm was used rubbed into itchy scalps to treat worm infections. Merian also took an interest in agriculture and among the local fruit she showcased was the pineapple. When describing the pineapple Merian cited several standard works on natural history, which had first documented the fruit, such as "Historia Naturalis Brasilae" by Willem Piso and Georg Marggraf, "Hortus Malabaricus" by Hendrik van Rheede, and "Medici Amstelodamensis" by Caspar Commelin. While the pineapple had been drawn before, Merian's went on to become the most prominent. She called the pineapple by its local name "annanas", and provided information on how the butterflies and cockroaches affected crops and agriculture in the colony. While documenting the botany of Surinam, Merian stayed true to her method of recording the metamorphosis of insects. Surinam's insects were shown throughout their entire life cycle and on their plant host.
Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies
María was born in Madrid, daughter of Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Infante of Spain, a grandson of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, and his second wife, Princess Louise of Orléans, daughter of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, a pretender to the French throne. She was granted, at birth, the rank and precedence of an infanta of Spain, although not the actual use of the title, her own being Princess of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Her family moved to Seville, when her father was made Captain General of that province. When the Second Spanish Republic forced them into exile, they lived in Cannes and later in Paris, where she studied art at the Louvre.
Maria Sophie of Bavaria
Maria Sophie Amalie, Duchess in Bavaria (4 October 1841, Possenhofen Castle – 19 January 1925, Munich) was the last Queen consort of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. She was one of the ten children of Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria. She was born as Duchess Maria Sophia in Bavaria. She was the younger sister of the better-known Elisabeth of Bavaria ("Sisi") who married Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.
Maria Sibylla Merian
In 1699, the city of Amsterdam granted Merian permission to travel to Suriname in South America, along with her younger daughter Dorothea Maria. On 10 July, the fifty-two year old Merian and her daughter set sail. The goal of the mission was to spend five years illustrating new species of insects. In order to finance the mission, Maria Sibylla sold 255 of her own paintings. Before departing, she wrote:
Maria Sibylla Merian
Merian was the first European women to independently go on a scientific expedition in South America. In the 19th century Ida Pfeiffer, Alexandrine Tinne, Florence Baker, Mary French Sheldon, Mary Henrietta Kingsley and Marianne North followed in her footsteps and explore the natural world of Africa. Margaret Fountaine studied butterflies on five continents. Merian's scientific expedition of Surinam predated Alexander von Humboldt's famous South America expedition by 100 years, and that of Princess Theresa of Bavaria by 200 years. Merian's publication on her expedition was later identified as a key exponent of illustrated geographical publications originating in Holland in the late 17th century, which marketed an "exotic" but accessible new world to Europeans.
Maria Alphaizuli
Mariam bint Abu Ya'qub Ashshilbi (Arabic: مريم بنت أبي يعقوب الشَّلْبي) was an 8th-century Arabic-language poet of al-Andalus. She was born in Shilb (modern Silves, Portugal) and settled in Seville, where she became a tutor of noblewomen.
Maria Papapetros
Born in Heraklion Crete Greece to parents Chrysa and Vasillios Petropoulos, both of Greek descent and immigrants of Asia Minor. Her father was born in Istanbul in 1895 and her mother in 1912 in Izmir Turkey. Maria’s three older brothers (Nicholas, Johnny, and George) were born within two and a half years, with only a few months between them and were a league of their own. She came along six years later July 20, 1943 in a starving environment. Food was scarce because of the German occupation. She was always protected and cared for by her brothers as a toddler, but too young for them to play with. She always played with her make-believe friends and was a happy child. 
When she was six in June 29, 1949 her baby sister Emerald arrived, and Maria became the middle child over night. She was always a mature child but now she had to grow up really fast. Five children, three of them teenagers practically were too much for her mother. She became her mother’s helper assuming responsibilities being the oldest girl, house chores; cleaning, ironing, sweeping and dusting. She was doing the grocery shopping by her seventh birthday every morning before going to school, as the boys were not to be trusted with cash.
Maria Sibylla Merian
She observed the life cycles of insects over decades, thus she made detailed drawings based on live insects in their natural environment or freshly preserved specimens. This set her apart from previous artist-naturalists such as Conrad Gesner. Her drawings and engraved plates depict moths laying eggs, or caterpillars feeding on leaves. By drawing live insects Merian could accurately depict colours, as preserved specimens lose colour. The plates she eventually published are complex compositions. They are based on detailed studies she painted on vellum, many are preserved in her study journal. A comparison shows that she changed little and preserved the posture and colour of insects when placing them into the larger composition of her plates. In the course of her insect studies she also recorded and painted the reproductive cycle of flowers, from bud through fruit. As a trained artist Merian was concerned with colour accuracy and in "Metamorphosis" she recorded the plants from which pigments could be derived. The engravings she produced or supervised bear little difference from her original water colours. Some engravings were also hand-coloured by her.
Sibylla Sambetha
The woman's identity is lost. There have been a number of attempts to associate her with a historical person, including in the 19th century, as Willem Moreel's daughter Mary. Willem Moreel was a magistrate of Bruges who commissioned from Memling a portrait diptych and, later, a triptych for the Church of Saint James at Bruges which he had founded. But any identities have in turn been rejected; in the case of Mary Moreel, she would have been too young in 1480 to be the woman portrayed.