Characteristic original watercolour botanical drawing by Johanna Helena Herolt (1668-1728), the eldest daughter of Maria Sibylla Merian and Johann Andreas Graff. It shows a wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri) and double hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis) with two inchworm moths (Geometriae) in the air, two inchworms and two pupae. She probably drew it in Amsterdam around 1700. Though she still remains in the shadow of her mother, she was a fine flower and insect artist in her own right and there is growing appreciation of her work. Her watercolours, more baroque than her mother's and often with brighter colours, radiate vigour and vivacity: the flowers, painted with intensity in every detail, really come to life.
Reitsma, p. 135, notes that the prices for the flower watercolours increased with the number of insects, so the present watercolour must have been unusually expensive.
Characteristic watercolour in fine state of preservation. Herolt herself may have revised the upper part of the hyacinth. Cf. Reitsma, Maria Sibylla Merian & dochters, ill. 110 (p. 147); Wettengl, Maria Sibylla Merian 1647-1717, kunstenares en natuuronderzoekster, no. 120 (ill. 44 on p. 85).