Arthur Gardiner BUTLER
(Beckenham 1844 - Beckenham 1925)
Studies of Five Butterflies
Sold
Watercolour, over traces of an underdrawing in pencil.
Signed with initials and dated A.G.B. / 1861 at the lower right.
Inscribed Watercolour by A. G. Butler. / Artist & Engraver 1861 on a label pasted onto the old backing board.
156 x 163 mm. (6 1/8 x 6 3/8 in.)
Signed with initials and dated A.G.B. / 1861 at the lower right.
Inscribed Watercolour by A. G. Butler. / Artist & Engraver 1861 on a label pasted onto the old backing board.
156 x 163 mm. (6 1/8 x 6 3/8 in.)
The butterflies depicted in this drawing include, at the upper centre, a Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta), flanked by two male Silver-studded blue butterflies (Plebeius argus). The two butterflies at the bottom of the sheet are both Painted Lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui).
Arthur Gardiner Butler was an English entomologist and ornithologist who worked at the British Museum on the taxonomy of birds, insects and spiders. He also published several books on these subjects, such as British Birds with Their Nests and Eggs (1896-1898), as well as articles on exotic spiders from Australia, the Galapagos and elsewhere. Butler published a number of works on lepidoptery, including Tropical Butterflies and Moths (1873), Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of New Zealand (1874) and The Butterflies of Malacca (1879), as well as two catalogues of the lepidoptera collections of the British Museum, from which he retired in 1901 due to ill health. Butler was a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, the Linnean Society of London and the Zoological Society of London.