From 1686 to 1691, Merianin,along with her mother and two daughters, lived on the estate of Walta Castle near Wieuwerd in Friesland (a northern province within the then Dutch Republic) as a guest of the Protestant religious community of Labadists. Life in Walta is important to her story for several reasons: there she devoted herself to the study of Latin, insects, animals, plants, and amphibians of the moors, something which gave great impetus to her diary of observations, the Book of Studies. In Friesland, she also heard about Suriname for the first time: the reason for this is to be found in the figure of the owner of Walta Castle, Cornelis van Sommelsdijck, who, having become governor of Suriname, allocated some land to the Labadists who founded the colony named Providence: from there, news arrived in Walta along with specimens of animals and plants forming a collection of ‘exotic’ rarities that Merianin certainly saw.

In the showcase, a map of Friesland and the 17th-century Dutch atlas where the inspiration came from ; a drawing of Walta Castle by Merianin’s husband, and a scene of the murder of Cornelis van Sommelsdijck in Suriname in 1688.