Five Butterflies, a Moth, and Two Beetles

One of the most skilled etchers in the history of art, Wenzel Hollar is known to have produced some 2,700 etchings over his lifetime. His subjects varied from topographical cityscapes to mythology, historic events, portraits, still life and natural history specimens. A native Bohemian, Hollar lived in Germany before moving to London in 1636 to become the private draughtsman-printmaker of the art collector Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. It was between 1644 and 1652, when Hollar returned to the Continent to avoid the revolutionary wars in England, that he made this series of engravings of butterflies and moths, based on his earlier coloured drawings of Arundel's natural history collection.