Maria Sibylla Merian's 1705 Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium is considered a "high point" of early printing, portraying exotic insects at a time when Western Europeans were keen to explore, name and understand the world.
In the 18th century, most of the criticism was directed towards her scientific approach... To be fair, it's probably not so much her scientific approach as the fact that she was a woman.
The main criticism has been that Maria Sibylla Merian didn't mention the names of the people that she took information from... she doesn't mention [them by] name.
I don't know of other examples where a female naturalist made a trip like this and produced such a beautiful book in the late 17th or early 18th century.
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