drawing;
album
- Museum number
- SL,5275.73
- Description
-
A lizard and a black and white snake entwined around an orange-flowered Nasturtium, from an album entitled 'Merian's Drawings of Surinam Insects &c'
Watercolour and bodycolour, heightened with white, on vellum
- Production date
- 1705 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 270 millimetres
-
Width: 367 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Attributed by Ella Reitsma to Merian's daughter, Dorothea Graff, perhaps supervised by her mother. In addition to the book on Surinam insects, Merian planned to do one on reptiles which was never published. See Sl, 5279.16 for a similar composition.
Entry from J.Harvey's commentary to the Folio Society facsimile of the Surinam Album (London, 2006):
'The lizard is probably the Mophead Iguana, Uranoscodon superciliosus (Linnaeus), a native of northeastern South America and widespread in forested areas of Surinam. They can frequently be seen resting on branches overhanging rivers and drop into the water when disturbed. In the watercolour the snake is coiled around Tropaeolum majus Linnaeus, the Nasturtium, a plant that was probably introduced to Surinam.
The snake is probably Spilotes pullatus (Linnaeus), the Tropical Rat Snake or Tiger Snake. This is a large snake which can grow 2.6 meters long. It is widely distributed from southern Mexico through Central America to Argentina. It lives on the ground and on the branches of trees, eating small mammals and birds and their eggs.'
Further lit: E. Reitsma, 'Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science', Amsterdam and Los Angeles, 2008, p. 217, fig.160
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2004 10 Jun-14 Sep, British Museum Enlightenment Gallery
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Acquisition notes
- Transferred to P&D 11 March 1885 (see note on fly-leaf of album SL,5275.1-91). Transferred from the Department of Manuscripts.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5275.73
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: N,01.73