Moths, Butterflies and a Wasp, Pieter Withoos

Artwork Overview

Pieter Withoos, Moths, Butterflies and a Wasp
Pieter Withoos, Moths, Butterflies and a Wasp
Pieter Withoos
Moths, Butterflies and a Wasp
circa 1680
Pieter Withoos
1654–1693
Moths, Butterflies and a Wasp, circa 1680
Where object was made: Netherlands
Material/technique: vellum; pen; ink; wash
Dimensions:
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 20.3 x 29.5 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 8 0.99213 x 11 5/8 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 14 x 19 in
Credit line: Museum purchase: Elmer F. Pierson Fund
Accession number: 1985.0144
Not on display
Add to portfolio

If you wish to reproduce this image, please submit an image request

Images

Label texts

Exhibition Label: "Cabinets of Curiosity: Musing About Collections," Jun-2006, Joseph Keehn and Madeline Rislow Withoos was a leading specialist in the rendering of plants, insects and animals during the later seventeenth century in the Low Countries. Some of Withoos’s drawings may have served as the basis for illustrations in natural history texts of the day. By the seventeenth century highly finished drawings like this (as opposed to drawings that were sketches for compositions to be completed in other mediums) were collected. This is underscored by the large oval-shaped collector's mark. Sometimes it is possible to identify collectors through their marks, but in this case the owner's identity remains a mystery. It is noteworthy that someone would so strongly assert their ownership of this sheet, stamping their emblem of ownership on the front rather than the back of the drawing, thereby throwing off the composition as if a sixth alien insect had landed near the corner of the sheet.