Merian’s Antique Botanical Prints CD-ROM and Book

by admin on January 30, 2010

Product Description
From a beautiful 17th-century botanical publication — all 153 black-and-white images of insects and plants by an artist renowned for her scientific eye and precise detail. The engravings of roses, lilies, carnations, and other plants, as well as butterflies and insects, will be of use to graphic artists, craftspeople, students, and historians.
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Merian's Antique Botanical Prints CD-ROM and Book

Tagged as: antique, Book, Botanical, CdRom, Merian's, Prints

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

Karla Benoist January 30, 2010 at 3:26 pm: Had I know that there were worms on every plant I would not have purchsed this item. The pictures, when viewed up close are horrible.
Rating: 1 / 5
BothCoasts January 30, 2010 at 5:17 pm: Obviously, the one-star reviewer didn’t know who Merian was or what her art was about.

Maria Sibylla Merian was a 17th century naturalist and artist. Her work examines insects and botanicals from a scientfic perspective, so although aesthetics are certainly a concern (and her drawings are truly remarkable in that respect), so are things like metamorphosis and rot. She was studying specimens of the natural world as well as drawing them. As a result, the pictures in here do indeed have insects crawling all over and sometimes eating fruits and flowers (which are sometimes decaying). If you like Merian’s work, then these are faithful reproductions (although her illustrations are of course better in color!)

If you are considering this product to use the clip art for something like DIY wedding invitations or for decorating a Mother’s Day picture frame or something, then the one-star reviewer is right–the drawings are probably a little too creepy-crawly. If you want just nice botanical drawings and flower clip-art, I recommend the big clip-art book simply titled “Plants,” with the green title banner.
Rating: 5 / 5
HR January 30, 2010 at 6:31 pm: Merian is an amazing natural historian… her work was all about recording the life cycles of animals, particularly butterflies and moths…. to call them worms…. when without the caterpillar there is no butterfly…

worms are not even insects….

i haven’t read/seen this one yet but we are reading kim todd’s book about her and looking her up on the internet. the drawings and paintings are just beautiful, and very true to life!
Rating: 5 / 5
Charlotte B. Hammack January 30, 2010 at 8:11 pm: Excellent illustrations! Good and great colors and images. I use these for decoupage and they are great.
Rating: 5 / 5