The Collectors: A Life in Lepidoptera

This elegant hand-colored engraving is now on display in The Collectors: A Life in Lepidoptera at Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. It’s one of many antique natural history prints that collectively depict how the science of entomology has been furthered by the passion of collectors and the skill of artists.

The butterflies pictured here were pinned in the 1700s by Dru Drury, a prosperous British silversmith with the most magnificent insect collection of his age. He paid collectors abroad to send him exotic species. Drury asked artist and fellow collector Moses Harris to “rescue his collection from oblivion by delineating them on paper.”

This plate of lifelike poses – Female and Male Indian Fritillary Butterflies – was published in Drury’s Illustrations of Natural History (London, 1770–1782). The Collectors is included with Museum admission and runs through September 7 in the John and Peggy Maximus Gallery.