These very attractive plates are from a book called Butterflies and Moths of Britain, written and illustrated by Vere Lucy Temple and published in 1945.
I bought a copy in a second-hand bookshop about fifty years ago and have always liked the way that the plates were drawn, with the coloured butterflies portrayed against line drawings of their food plants, usually with the larvae and pupae.
It's difficult to find much information about Temple, who was born in 1898 and is thought to have died in 1981. She specialised in natural history and animal painting and seems to have been in demand in the 1920s and 1930s, when she exhibited in leading galleries.
She wrote and illustrated seven books and illustrated five others. All her original work seems to have been auctioned in numerous lots after her death. On the strength of these attractive butterfly and moth illustrations, she deserves to be more widely known.
Vere Lucy Temple was a Fellow of the Royal Entomology Society, which explains why the text of her book is so full of perceptive detail, but it's also a very lively, personal and engaging account that conveys her passion for butterflies.
In her preface she acknowledges help and advice from several eminent lepidopterists and scientists of her day and also refers to what was, then, cutting-edge research on insect vision and behaviour.
Posts
