BRITIISH BUTTERFLIES 39 - Fine Original 1849 Colour Lithograph by Noel Humphreys

HUMPHREYS, Henry Noel ; British Butterflies and their Transformations - Fine Original Hand-Coloured Lithograph Plate.

This charming original hand-coloured lithograph is from J. O. Westwood & H. N. Humphreys's British Butterflies and their Transformations. The work was published in London by William S. Orr & Co. in 1849. John Obadiah Westwood completed most of the text, and Henry Noel Humphreys completed the illustrations for the work. Measurements of the lithograph are 8" by 10 3/4".  A generally VG+ clean bright impression.  Please note the lithograph is much more clearer and vibrant than that shown in the illustration.

Henry Noel Humphreys (1810-1879) was an accomplished illustrator and scholar in numerous subjects. In addition to his entomological texts, Humphreys wrote works on ancient Greek and Roman coins, archaeology, and the art of writing and printing enriching even these simplest texts with exquisite chromolithographs printed by Owen Jones. He was inspired to embark on this ambitious planned survey of British insects following a trip to Italy. In the Preface he likened the person in the fields, unacquainted with natural history, to one placed in a library and unable to read. "He cannot read in the beautiful book of nature when in the summer it opens its brightest leaves". A contemporary review in The Lancet noted: The plates, exquisitely drawn by Mr. Humphreys, represent the insect in its three great stages-as the caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly or moth -all hanging side by side on the plants which furnish their ordinary food. The transformation thus seems to take place under the eye; and the metamorphoses are associated in the mind, without any effort." In response to Humphreys' claim that "Entomology is a branch of knowledge more easily acquired than many imagine. The individual beauty of the insects in every stage, the ease with which they are preserved, and the comparative facility with which a complete collection of British species may be formed, particularly of butterflies, of which we number scarcely more than eighty distinct species, render it a task of easy attainment" the same reviewer wryly noted "Mr. Humphreys throws out a suggestion, which has, perhaps, a touch of the butterfly Utopia in it, but which is ingenious, and deserves trial." ​
As one of the pre-eminent entomologists of the Victorian period, John Obadiah Westwood (1805-1893) served as collaborator, editor, and consultant on many entomological publications. He was a prodigious author and researcher, publishing some four hundred scientific papers and some twenty books, as well as making numerous contributions to works by other authors. He was one of the founding members in 1833 of the Entomological Society, of which he became honorary life president in 1883, and a fellow of the Linnaean Society. 

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