Description
Description of Benjamin Wilkes' English Moths & Butterflies by Ehret & Van Huysum
These extraordinary hand-colored engravings come from the first edition of Benjamin Wilkes' work entitled The English Moths and Butterflies: together with the Plants, Flowers, and Fruits whereon they feed, and are usually found. All drawn and coloured in such a manner, as to represent their several beautiful appearances, being copied exactly from the subjects themselves, and painted on the best of atlas paper... The first edition was published in London between the years 1747 and 1749. The entire work consists of 120 hand-colored engraved plates - most of which were composed by the very famous George Dionysius Ehret and Jacob Van Huysum.
Within the introduction, Henry Baker, the compiler of the text for the work writes, "As to Plants, Flowers, and Fruits, he [Wilkes] declares himself under the highest obligation to a most curious Naturalist, and worthy member of the Royal Society of London, whose costly and valuable collection is known to the learned world, and esteemed as it deserves. This Gentleman has generously permitted him to make use of many excellent Paintings of these subjects, which are taken from Nature by those two celebrated Artists Mr. George Dennis Ehret, and Mr. Jacobus Van Heysum, and executed with the utmost Judgment and Command of Pencil, so that he could hardly doubt but that the true Copies of them would give great Pleasure to the Lovers of Botany." The naturalist spoken of above is named Joseph Banks. It is known that he had a collection of 65 drawings by Ehret. Thus, not only does this work contain very accurately and beautifully depicted moths and butterflies, it also displays with them, in a delicate composition, marvelous botanical subjects drawn by Ehret and Van Huysum.
The prints are hand-colored engravings on very sturdy, chain-linked paper. As stated above, these prints come from the first edition of the work. Within the work, their is a list of subscribers (one of whom was the Archbishop of Canterbury) which numbers just above 100. It can safely be concluded that the prints are very scarce, as there are only around 100 copies of the work in existence. They are on fine paper that measures ~10 1/4" by 12 1/2".