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Botanical Prints #1 | Botanical Prints #2 | Botanical Prints #3 | Botanical Prints #4 | Botanical Prints #5 | Butterfly Prints #1
The Mazarine Blue Butterfly
Order Item BSM-P92
$25.00
Captain Thomas Brown (1785-1862), was a British naturalist born in Perth, Scotland and was educated at the Edinburgh High School. After joining the Forfar and Kineardine Militia at the age of twenty, he was raised to rank of Captain in 1811. While quartered in Manchester, he became interested in nature. He purchased the Fifeshire flax mill after his regiment was disbanded. The mill burned down before he had the opportunity to insure it. Also a malacologist (studying mollusks), he began to write books about nature to earn a living. For twenty-two years beginning in 1840, he was curator of the Manchester Museum. Additionally, he became a fellow of the Linnean Society, a member of the Wernerian, Kirwanian, and Phrenological Societies. Of the several natural history books he wrote, some dealt with conchology (studying the shells of mollusks). There was a shell named after him called Zebina browniana.
Plate XXVIII, Papilio arion. The whole upper surface of The Mazarine Blue Butterfly is of a fine deep blue. The exterior margin has a border of deep black. The upper wings, a row of equidistant and the under ones a row of triangular blue spots. The centre of each wing has a lunated black spot, with a row of oval black spots betwixt it and the border, four on the upper wings, six on the lower. On the outside of the black border is a very narrow edge of white, which is fringed. The body is purple above, and the underside is pale brown, studded thickly with black spots.
This particular plate is an original hand-coloured engraving from "The Book of Butterfies, Sphinges, and Moths" by Captain Thomas Brown, Volume One (1834). This bright, vividly coloured plate measures approximately 4 X 6.5 inches. It is in very good condition for the age, with only minor light spotting which does not interfere with the frameable area. The engraved portion could be matted and/or framed to an area 3 .5 inches square, or larger to include the plate number and name of butterfly. The corresponding descriptive text page is shared with another engraving, the Brimstone Butterfly. It will be included with the respective engraving purchase on a first-come, first-served basis. Please ask about its availability if you are interested, or perhaps you may consider the purchase of both corresponding engravings.
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