Name/Title
CE 1657 John Jonston, Caterpillars, Silkworms, Larvae, and Cocoons (Tab. XXII)Description
John Jonston (1603–1675)
After Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593–1650)
From Historiae naturalis
Amsterdam: Johannes Jacobus Schipper, 1657
Copper engraving on paper with hand coloring
Plate XXII
This plate assembles caterpillars, larvae, pupae, cocoons, and several adult insects in a comparative arrangement. Individual figures represent different developmental forms rather than simply a collection of unrelated animals.
Such images belong to an important period in the study of insects. Seventeenth-century naturalists increasingly documented developmental stages that had previously been poorly understood, although comprehensive explanations of insect metamorphosis were still developing. Jonston’s work compiled this material within a broader encyclopedic survey of the animal world.
The plate is therefore useful for understanding natural history immediately before the more intensive investigations of insect development undertaken later in the seventeenth century, particularly by Jan Swammerdam and Maria Sibylla Merian. Its arrangement records an emerging effort to represent small organisms and their transformations systematically through printed images.
This impression was issued in the 1657 Amsterdam edition of Jonston’s Historiae naturalis.Create Date
August 15, 2026Update Date
September 5, 2026
