ncere appreciation of nature
was revealed in her earliest efforts, and for some years she devoted much
time to its study."

Moring's _Quarterly_ says in regard to the special work which Mrs.
Mansfield has done: "It is so seldom that an artist is able to take in
hand what may be termed the entire decoration of a book--including in
that phrase cover, illustration, colophon, head- and tail-pieces, initial
letters, and borders--that it is a pleasure to find in the subject of our
paper a lady who may be said to be capable of taking all these points
into consideration in the embellishment of a volume."

<b>MEDICI, MARIE DE'.</b> Wife of Henry IV. Born at Florence, 1573; died at
Cologne, 1642. A portrait of herself, engraved on wood, bears the legend,
"Maria Medici F. MDLXXXII." Another portrait of a girl, attributed to
her, is signed, "L. O. 1617." It may be considered a matter of grave
doubt whether the nine-year-old girl drew and engraved with her own hand
the first-named charming picture, which has been credited to her with
such frank insouciance.

<b>MENGS, ANNA MARIA.</b> Member of the Academy of San Fernando. She was a
daughter of Anton Rafael Mengs, and was born in Dresden in 1751, where
she received instruction from her father. In 1777 she married the
engraver Salvador Carmona in Rome, and went with him to Spain, where she
died in 1790. Portraits and miniatures of excellent quality were
executed by her, and on them her reputation rests.

<b>MERIAN, MARIA SIBYLLA.</b> Born at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1647. This
artist merits our attention, although her art was devoted to an unusual
purpose. Her father was a learned geographer and engraver whose published
works are voluminous. Her maternal grandfather was the eminent engraver,
Theodore de Bry or Brie.

From her childhood Anna Sibylla Merian displayed an aptitude for drawing
and a special interest in insect life. The latter greatly disturbed her
mother, but she could not turn the child's attention from entomology, and
was forced to allow that study to become her chief pursuit.

The flower painter, Abraham Mignon, was her master in drawing and
painting; but at an early age, before her studies were well advanced, she
married an architect, John Andrew Graf, of Nuremberg, with whom she lived
unhappily. She passed nearly twenty years in great seclusion, and, as she
tells us in the preface to one of her books, she devoted these years to
the examination and st