Thursday, October 14, 2010

Crazy Victorians



Did you know that in the end of the 19th century there was a movement to create microscopic art?

The images I have posted here are microscopic still lives created in the 1880s using materials such as the scales from a butterfly or other insect.

"Combining various objects, often many 100s (or 1000s!) of individual butterfly or insect scales, diatoms, spicules, etc.; each piece was individually selected and assembled to create pictures or complex geometric arrangements. Many of these amazing "picture" slides using butterfly scales were made in the last quarter of the 19th Century by H. (Harold) Dalton, which were then often factored through W. Watson & Sons of London, and carry their secondary labels.
The image immediately below, is composed of diatoms, butterfly scales, and plates and anchors of Synapta. It is a beautiful example of the geometric variety of exhibition mount."
Read a little more at victorianmicroscopeslides.com

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