The life cycle of insects had only begun to be understood in Merian’s lifetime. Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) had argued that insect life was spontaneously generated from rotting matter. His theory dominated European thought until the seventeenth century, when a number of scientists undertook experiments which proved him wrong. Among these was Francesco Redi (1626 – 97), an Italian biologist, who compared pieces of meat left in sealed and unsealed jars. He discovered that maggots only appeared on the meat left open to the air, proving that insects were not born from rotting matter. This was crucial for the study of metamorphosis, as it challenged the idea that butterflies were new beings, born out of the decay of dead caterpillars.

In Leiden, Jan Swammerdam (1637 – 80) used a microscope to demonstrate that metamorphosis represented different life stages of the same insect, rather than being a rebirth of a different animal. Swammerdam’s contemporary Jan Goedart (like Merian a painter) published a book showing the different stages of insect development in the 1660s. Merian’s contemporary, the Amsterdam doctor Stephan Blankaart, replicated Redi’s experiment and published the Theatre of Caterpillars, Worms, Maggots and Small Flying Creatures (1688), which included illustrations of butterflies from Suriname.