Collection: Dorothea Maria Graff

Dorothea Maria Graff (1678-1743) was an 18th-century German painter, engraver, and zoologist, born in the Duchy of Bavaria. She lived and worked in Amsterdam and Saint Petersburg, where she also taught at the Academy and served as a curator.

Graff was the younger daughter of the flower and insect painter Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717), adopting her mother's surname Merian and later her second husband's surname Gsell.

Graff specialized in painting flowers and insects, a focus she shared with her mother, Maria Sibylla Merian. She spent two years in Surinam alongside her mother, studying and depicting insects and reptiles within their tropical environments. Her work also included engraving.