{"title":"The Curious Mind","description":"\u003cp\u003eStar charts, snowflakes, optics and insects: images from the history of science for curious minds.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"anna-atkins-cyanotype-botany-mug","title":"Anna Atkins: Cyanotype Ferns, 1840s – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAnna Atkins\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eCyanotype Ferns, 1840s\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNational Gallery of Art, Washington, D\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA fern laid straight onto sensitised paper and left in the sun. No camera, no lens: white fronds standing against the deep Prussian blue of the cyanotype ground, each leaflet resolved with a clarity no hand-drawn illustration could match. The sheet is from the 1840s and is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnna Atkins (1799–1871) was a British botanist who in 1843 produced what is widely recognised as the first photographically illustrated book: \u003cem\u003ePhotographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions\u003c\/em\u003e, issued in self-published fascicles over the following decade. She had learned the cyanotype process — a photosensitive technique using iron salts — directly from its inventor, Sir John Herschel, who communicated it the previous year, and she applied it not as a novelty but as a scientific instrument: specimens placed directly onto coated paper and exposed to sunlight, yielding silhouettes of extraordinary precision. Atkins understood that photography and natural history were not in competition but in alliance, and her work stands at the intersection of Victorian science, botanical illustration and the new visual art of photography in its first decade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnna Atkins, \u003cem\u003eFerns. Specimen of Cyanotype\u003c\/em\u003e, 1840s. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":56856454267211,"sku":"cde77fa9-35cd-4bc6-883f-e805b326d281","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Atkins_Mug_front_v3.jpg?v=1787130693"},{"product_id":"bayeux-tapestry-halleys-comet-1066-mug","title":"Bayeux Tapestry: Halley's Comet, 1066 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eHalley's Comet\u003c\/em\u003e, 1066\u003cbr\u003ewool embroidery on linen\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePhotograph by Myrabella, 7 March 2013, Wikimedia Commons, released by the photographer into the public domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpring, 1066. A comet blazes across the night sky over England. Men stand rooted to the ground, arms flung upward, unable to look away. \"Isti mirant stella\" — these men marvel at the star — reads the stitched inscription above their heads. A few paces on in the embroidered narrative, King Harold sits at Westminster as a messenger leans close to deliver the news.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is Scenes 32–33 of the Bayeux Tapestry: the most celebrated panels of the most famous medieval artwork in existence. Probably commissioned within years of the Norman Conquest by Bishop Odo of Bayeux — William the Conqueror's half-brother — the nearly seventy-metre wool-on-linen chronicle recorded the events of 1066 with dramatic economy. The comet, Halley's, had been observed by chroniclers across Europe and Asia that spring. In the tapestry, it is unambiguously an omen. At Hastings in October, the omen proved correct.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn 10 September 2026 the tapestry goes on show at the British Museum in London, in Britain for the first time in more than nine hundred years. The loan runs until 11 July 2027 and the opening months are already sold out. The panel at the centre of the publicity is the one wrapped around this mug.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReproduced from a photograph of the original eleventh-century embroidery. The wool was dyed with three plants — madder for the reds, woad for the blues, weld for the yellows — and nine hundred years have taken the edge off all three. The colours here have been lifted back so that they read with full intensity on white porcelain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fourth product image shows the same scene as Charles Stothard engraved it. The Society of Antiquaries of London sent him to Bayeux in 1816 to copy the whole tapestry; James Basire cut the plates, and their publication in 1821–23 was the first time a complete colour reproduction had been put before the public. Stothard drew the embroidery after the damage of the Revolution and before the nineteenth-century repairs — which is why his plates are still the reference for what is original stitching and what is later mending. One thing he did not draw: a fragment left Bayeux during the campaign and surfaced in London. The South Kensington Museum sent it back on 14 August 1872. Who removed it has never been settled.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBayeux Tapestry, scenes 32–33, wool embroidery on linen, c. 1070s, Bayeux, Normandy. Photograph by Myrabella, 7 March 2013, Wikimedia Commons, released by the photographer into the public domain. Fourth image: Charles Alfred Stothard, \u003cem\u003eThe Tapestry of Bayeux\u003c\/em\u003e, engraved by James Basire, Society of Antiquaries of London, 1821–23; Internet Archive, Public Domain Mark 1.0.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":57838947303755,"sku":"bd212831-ea2a-4e6a-97d0-dd3534b07b3f","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/f17a3bf6-942d-4c7b-91a2-11f24b650ce3.webp?v=1783751513"},{"product_id":"jan-luyken-workings-of-the-eye","title":"Jan Luyken: The Workings of the Eye, 1682 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eJan Luyken\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Workings of the Eye\u003c\/em\u003e, 1682\u003cbr\u003eetching and letterpress\u003cbr\u003eRijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1896-A-19368\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1682 the Amsterdam publisher Willem Goeree issued his \u003cem\u003eNatuurlyk en schilderkonstig ontwerp der menschkunde\u003c\/em\u003e — an anatomy written for painters who wanted to understand the body they were drawing. For the chapter on the eye he turned to Jan Luyken, the finest etcher in the city.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLuyken's plate shows the whole path of sight in one image: a candle at the left, its rays entering both eyes, the optic nerves winding back through the skull to the brain. It is anatomy as an artist saw it — drawn with the same hand that made Luyken's poems and his martyr scenes, two decades before Newton published his \u003cem\u003eOpticks\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis mug bears the central plate, marked II, from the 1682 edition — printed across the full porcelain surface with its original paper tone. The fourth product image shows the complete sheet with the printed detail marked, so the crop is visible for what it is.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/jan-luyken-dirk-willems\"\u003eDirk Willems Saves His Pursuer, 1685\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJan Luyken, plate marked I–III, etching and letterpress, in Willem Goeree, \u003cem\u003eNatuurlyk en schilderkonstig ontwerp der menschkunde\u003c\/em\u003e, Amsterdam 1682. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, RP-P-1896-A-19368. Van Eeghen 484. Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58163234046283,"sku":"9a210257-1a68-4f10-8640-930fb9ed3dcb","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Optik_Mug_front.jpg?v=1787039687"},{"product_id":"musee-entomologique-carpenter-bee-xylocopa-morio-1878-art-mug","title":"Musée Entomologique: Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa morio), 1878 – Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eCarpenter Bee (Xylocopa morio)\u003c\/em\u003e, 1878\u003cbr\u003eHand-coloured wood engraving\u003cbr\u003eMadge Entomology Collection, University of Alberta Libraries, and made available through the Internet Archive and the Biodiversity Heritage Library\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA carpenter bee crosses the frame on rust-red wings, its body a blue-black so deep the engraver left the paper bare to model it. Around it a passionflower vine in fine hatching, a tendril curling into a spiral, and at the right the trunk of a dead tree — the material the bee is named for. Carpenter bees do not build, they bore: they cut galleries into standing dead wood, and the genus name says so. \u003cem\u003eXylocopa\u003c\/em\u003e is Greek for wood-cutter.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sheet is \u003cem\u003eHyménoptères — Pl. VII\u003c\/em\u003e from the \u003cem\u003eMusée entomologique illustré\u003c\/em\u003e, the three-volume natural history that Jules Rothschild published in Paris between 1876 and 1878; this plate belongs to volume three, \u003cem\u003eLes Insectes\u003c\/em\u003e. The full plate sets four bees on one passionflower — beside \u003cem\u003eXylocopa morio\u003c\/em\u003e three tropical American species: \u003cem\u003eChrysantheda frontalis\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eEuglossa romandi\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCentris denudans\u003c\/em\u003e. This mug takes the upper part alone: the carpenter bee, its vine and its tree. The fourth product image shows the whole sheet with the printed part marked, so the crop is visible for what it is.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plates are wood engravings, coloured by hand one copy at a time, so no two are quite alike. What you see is the colouring of one particular copy — the one in the Dr. Ronald B. Madge Entomology Collection at the University of Alberta. Nothing has been repainted. The yellowing of the paper has been balanced out and the tone opened so that the engraved line carries on white porcelain; the hatching, the colour and the silhouette are as the sheet has them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same sheet\u003c\/strong\u003e — The passionflower at the centre of the same plate, with the green orchid bee, is on its own mug: \u003ca href=\"\/products\/musee-entomologique-orchid-bee-and-passionflower-chrysantheda-frontalis-1878-art-mug\"\u003eOrchid Bee and Passionflower (Chrysantheda frontalis)\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMusée entomologique illustré\u003c\/em\u003e, vol. 3, \u003cem\u003eLes Insectes\u003c\/em\u003e, Paris: J. Rothschild, 1878, plate \u003cem\u003eHyménoptères — Pl. VII\u003c\/em\u003e, upper detail. Hand-coloured wood engraving. Digitised from the copy in the Dr. Ronald B. Madge Entomology Collection, University of Alberta Libraries, and made available through the Internet Archive and the Biodiversity Heritage Library. Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58218243031371,"sku":"8cf64015-fe59-497f-88fb-07a6b7a56a05","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Xylocopa_Mug_front_3000.jpg?v=1787327399"},{"product_id":"albert-einstein-on-a-bicycle-1933-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Albert Einstein on a Bicycle, 1933 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eAlbert Einstein on a Bicycle\u003c\/em\u003e, 1933\u003cbr\u003ePhotographer unrecorded\u003cbr\u003eLeo Baeck Institute, New York, Albert Einstein Collection AR 136, call number F 5314A\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA driveway in Santa Barbara, February 1933. A man of fifty-three rides towards the camera with both hands on the bars and his whole face laughing. Behind him a white house, a second bicycle propped against the shrubs, shutters open to the winter sun. In front of him, thrown long across the asphalt, the shadow of a bicycle and its rider.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEinstein had come to California at the beginning of January for his third winter at Caltech. On 30 January, while he was here, Hitler became Chancellor. In the middle of March he decided to go back to Europe and wrote his resignation to the Prussian Academy of Sciences during the crossing; by the time the ship reached Antwerp he had resolved never to set foot on German soil again, and he never did. On 7 October 1933 he sailed for America and stayed. This photograph belongs to the weeks in between — a Berlin professor on a Californian driveway, laughing, with everything about to change.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe print is a small snapshot with a deckled edge, its emulsion gone warm over ninety years. It is held at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, in the Albert Einstein Collection, under the call number F 5314A. The record names the place — in front of Ben Meyer's house in Santa Barbara — but not the photographer.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fourth product image shows the print as the archive holds it, with the part printed on the mug marked. The white border and the staining along the lower edge fall outside the mark; the crease across the upper left corner runs into it and has been retouched, as has a small loss at the corner itself. The mug carries the photograph alone — straightened, cleaned of specks, with the warm tone of the paper kept.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlbert Einstein riding a bicycle, in front of Ben Meyer's house in Santa Barbara, California, February 1933. Photographer unrecorded. Leo Baeck Institute, New York, Albert Einstein Collection AR 136, call number F 5314A. Reproduced by permission of the Institute.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58220226576715,"sku":"b3885e98-62a3-4cd7-8b0c-402651df5bb7","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Einstein_Mug_1_front_3000.jpg?v=1787349412"},{"product_id":"andreas-cellarius-planisphaerium-ptolemaicum-1661-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Andreas Cellarius: Planisphaerium Ptolemaicum, 1661 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAndreas Cellarius\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003ePlanisphaerium Ptolemaicum\u003c\/em\u003e, 1661\u003cbr\u003eZentralbibliothek Zürich, T 12, doi\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic Domain Mark\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the centre, the Earth. A small globe of the northern hemisphere — Europe, Asia and Africa named on it — wrapped in a ring of cloud and set inside a band of flame: mundus sublunaris quatuor elementa complectens, the world below the moon that holds the four elements. Around it turn seven spheres, one for each planet the age could see, each with its god driving a chariot through the clouds. The outermost band is the zodiac. Everything moves around the Earth, because in this picture everything does.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe title is cut in half. It stands in two cartouches at the top, and you have to read across the sky to assemble it — left line, right line, left line, right. Even single words break across the gap. The engraver made the reader's eye travel the whole width of the heavens before the sentence closes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAndreas Cellarius published the Harmonia Macrocosmica in Amsterdam in 1660, and this is its opening plate. Copernicus had been in print for 117 years. Galileo had been tried 27 years earlier. The model was finished, and Cellarius opens with it anyway: the atlas was conceived as a history of ideas, and it sets out the systems of Ptolemy, of Copernicus and of Tycho Brahe side by side, each drawn on its own terms and with the same care. The sheet printed here comes from the issue of 1661; the Copernican plate, three leaves later in the same volume, is its counterpart.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was not an astronomer. Born around 1596 at Neuhausen near Worms, he taught Latin in Amsterdam and The Hague, and from 1637 was rector of the Latin school at Hoorn, housed in a former convent. He died there in the first months of 1665. Where he is buried is not known.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mug carries the plate whole — both cartouches, the winged figures at the sides, and in the lower corners the two groups of astronomers with their globes, quadrants and cross-staffs. The copy is the one kept in Zurich, coloured by hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fourth product image shows four details at the size they are printed: the Earth held in cloud and fire, the cartouche where the title breaks off mid-word, the chariot of the sun on the via solis, and the astronomer in the lower right corner.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/andreas-cellarius-planisphaerium-copernicanum-1661-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003ePlanisphaerium Copernicanum, 1661\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAndreas Cellarius, Planisphaerium Ptolemaicum sive machina orbium mundi ex hypothesi Ptolemaica in plano disposita. Plate 1 of the Harmonia Macrocosmica, Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1661. Zentralbibliothek Zürich, T 12, doi.org\/10.3931\/e-rara-89076. Public Domain Mark.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58233920749899,"sku":"260aa195-6acf-48e8-8a3c-c5491dfe299c","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Cellarius_Ptol_1_front_3000.jpg?v=1787511605"},{"product_id":"andreas-cellarius-planisphaerium-copernicanum-1661-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Andreas Cellarius: Planisphaerium Copernicanum, 1661 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAndreas Cellarius\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003ePlanisphaerium Copernicanum\u003c\/em\u003e, 1661\u003cbr\u003eZentralbibliothek Zürich, T 12, doi\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic Domain Mark\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eAt the centre, the sun — and it has a face. Around it the circles of Mercury and Venus, then the Earth carrying its moon in a small ring of its own, then Mars, then Jupiter with four satellites, then Saturn. The outermost band is the zodiac, twelve fields of cloud with their signs. Nothing here turns around the Earth except the moon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe title is cut in half, exactly as on the Ptolemaic plate: two cartouches at the top, read left line then right line, and single words break across the gap. The engraver made the reader's eye travel the whole width of the heavens before the sentence closes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is plate four of the Harmonia Macrocosmica, Amsterdam 1661 — three leaves after the Ptolemaic system, in the same volume, drawn by the same hand with the same care. Cellarius set the competing models beside one another and let each make its case. Copernicus had been in print for 117 years; Galileo had been tried 27 years earlier; and the four small discs beside Jupiter are what Galileo saw through his glass in 1610, drawn into the sky fifty years later.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAndreas Cellarius was not an astronomer. Born around 1596 at Neuhausen near Worms, he taught Latin in Amsterdam and The Hague, and from 1637 was rector of the Latin school at Hoorn, housed in a former convent. He died there in the first months of 1665. Where he is buried is not known.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mug carries the plate whole — both cartouches, the two figures at the sides, and in the lower corners the astronomers: Ptolemy on the left with his globe, and on the right a younger man with an armillary sphere. The copy is the one kept in Zurich, coloured by hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fourth product image shows four details at the size they are printed: the sun with its face, the cartouche where the title breaks off mid-word, Jupiter with its four moons, and the astronomer in the lower right corner.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/andreas-cellarius-planisphaerium-ptolemaicum-1661-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003ePlanisphaerium Ptolemaicum, 1661\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAndreas Cellarius, Planisphaerium Copernicanum sive systema universi totius creati ex hypothesi Copernicana in plano exhibitum. Plate 4 of the Harmonia Macrocosmica, Amsterdam: Johannes Janssonius, 1661. Zentralbibliothek Zürich, T 12, doi.org\/10.3931\/e-rara-89076. Public Domain Mark.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58235031322955,"sku":"16affa2e-eaff-43e0-a3ca-dec3cadc90e7","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Cellarius_Cop_1_front_3000.jpg?v=1787513078"},{"product_id":"wright-brothers-first-flight-1903-porcelain-art-mug","title":"The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, 1903 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eThe Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk\u003c\/em\u003e, 1903\u003cbr\u003ePhotograph by John T, 18 × 12.5 cm\u003cbr\u003eLibrary of Congress, Prints \u0026amp; Photographs Division, Washington, D\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA machine of spruce, ash and muslin is a foot or two above the sand, and the man at the right is Wilbur, standing where his run ended. Orville is lying prone at the controls, on his stomach, hips in the cradle that warped the wings. Behind them the launch rail runs back across the beach — a single wooden track laid on the flat. It is 10:35 in the morning of 17 December 1903, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and the wind is coming in cold off the Atlantic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe photograph exists because Orville set it up before he flew. He put the camera on a tripod, aimed it at the spot where he expected the machine to leave the rail, and showed John T. Daniels of the Kill Devil Hill lifesaving station how and when to snap the shutter. Daniels had never seen a camera before. He squeezed the bulb at exactly the right moment and afterwards was not certain he had squeezed it at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe flight lasted twelve seconds and covered 120 feet — shorter than the wingspan of an airliner. Three more followed that morning, each longer than the last; the fourth stayed up 59 seconds. Then a gust caught the machine on the ground and rolled it over, and it never flew again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe negative is a glass dry plate, 18 by 12.5 centimetres. It stayed with the brothers and is held today in their own papers at the Library of Congress.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe plate is damaged: a corner is broken away at the lower left and the emulsion is lost in two places along the bottom edge. Rather than paint them out, the mug carries a cropped frame that leaves them off the sheet. The picture gives up the far end of the launch rail and gains nothing that was not on the plate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fourth product image shows four details at close range: Orville at the controls, Wilbur beside the wing, the launch rail on the sand, and the tools left standing where the run began.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m.; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, 17 December 1903; dry-plate glass negative, 18 × 12.5 cm. Photograph by John T. Daniels, camera set by Orville Wright. Glass negatives from the Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Library of Congress, Prints \u0026amp; Photographs Division, Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-ppprs-00626 (LCCN 00652085). Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58236306325835,"sku":"f03461c1-4d70-4e1e-b48a-6fbe771bcd86","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Wright_Mug_1_front_3000_014b09d5-437d-485c-b166-4c0672f29fab.jpg?v=1787548145"},{"product_id":"wilson-bentley-snowflake-1905-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Wilson Bentley: Snowflake, c. 1905 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWilson A. Bentley (1865-1931)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eSnowflake\u003c\/em\u003e, c. 1905\u003cbr\u003eGelatin silver printing-out-paper print, 10.1 x 7.6 cm\u003cbr\u003eThe Museum of Modern Art, New York, inv. 393.2006\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ePublic domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilson Bentley was a farmer in Jericho, Vermont, in the snowbelt — about three metres of snow a year. His mother taught him at home. For his fifteenth birthday, in 1880, he was given a microscope. He spent the next years trying to draw what he saw in it, and failing.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen he connected a bellows camera to the microscope. In 1885, aged nineteen, he made the first photograph of a snow crystal that anyone had ever made.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe apparatus stood outdoors, because indoors the specimens melted. He waited in the cold, caught the falling flakes on a board, moved them under the lens with a feather, and exposed for a minute and a half. He did this for forty-six winters and photographed more than five thousand crystals. From that collection came the sentence everyone now repeats without knowing whose it was: no two are alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis one is a stellar dendrite, and it is as near to perfect as his plates come. Six arms of equal length, each carrying the same paired branches at the same angle, each branch ending in a small flat plate. At the centre, a hexagon the size of a pinhead. The crystal was on the ground for a few seconds and then gone; the photograph is all that is left of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBentley cut the crystal out of the print and mounted it on dark card. That is why the field is a black disc on a pale ground. He did this five thousand times over forty-six winters, in an unheated shed behind the farmhouse.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis print was made around 1905 and came to the Museum of Modern Art in New York a century later, acquired in memory of John Parkinson III through the generosity of his friends. It is 10.1 by 7.6 centimetres — the size of a postcard.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/wilson-bentley-frost-1910-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eFrost, c. 1910\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"\/products\/wilson-bentley-dew-spider-web-1910-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eDew on a Spider Web, c. 1910\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilson A. Bentley (1865–1931), Snowflake, c. 1905. Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print, 10.1 × 7.6 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 393.2006. Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58236941402443,"sku":"e5924d2a-568e-4c02-bc63-b9c61fe2a485","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/BentleyMoMA_Mug_1_front_3000_e47a7620-cee2-425d-bc4b-aa0919e41416.jpg?v=1787593068"},{"product_id":"wilson-bentley-frost-1910-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Wilson Bentley: Frost, c. 1910 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWilson Bentley\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eFrost\u003c\/em\u003e, c. 1910\u003cbr\u003eGelatin silver print\u003cbr\u003eThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003eOpen Access, CC0\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is not a snow crystal. It is frost — ice grown straight out of the air onto a cold surface. A snowflake falls once and is gone in seconds. Frost builds over hours, fern upon fern, until the whole pane is filled.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilson Bentley was a farmer in Jericho, Vermont, in the snowbelt — about three metres of snow a year. In 1885, aged nineteen, he bolted a bellows camera to a microscope and made the first photograph of a snow crystal that anyone had ever made. He kept at it for forty-six winters and more than five thousand crystals.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSnow was not all he photographed. He turned the same apparatus on dew, on raindrops and on frost — the whole of what water does when it is left alone in cold air. These are the plates nobody quotes, and they are the ones that show him as a photographer rather than a collector.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis one is frost, made around 1910. The ferns run edge to edge: no centre, no border, no right way up. The pattern simply carries on past the frame, which is why it is printed here as a band that runs round the mug rather than as a picture on the front. Wherever you set the mug down, there is more of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/wilson-bentley-snowflake-1905-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eSnowflake, c. 1905\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"\/products\/wilson-bentley-dew-spider-web-1910-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eDew on a Spider Web, c. 1910\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilson Alwyn Bentley (1865–1931), [Frost], c. 1910. Gelatin silver print. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015.201, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2015. Open Access, CC0.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58240301531467,"sku":"3935b168-04b2-400e-921c-1296ec3a3b47","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Frost_Mug_1_front_3000_fbd3800c-2be6-4104-b664-dd38a5952f3d.jpg?v=1787600683"},{"product_id":"wilson-bentley-dew-spider-web-1910-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Wilson Bentley: Dew on a Spider Web, c. 1910 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWilson Bentley\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eDew on a Spider Web\u003c\/em\u003e, c. 1910\u003cbr\u003eGelatin silver print, 7.6 × 9.2 cm\u003cbr\u003eThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003eOpen Access, CC0\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA spider's web, hung with dew, photographed at first light. Every drop is a lens. Bentley set his camera in front of it and made the water do what the snow crystals did: hold still long enough to be seen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was a farmer in Jericho, Vermont. In 1885, aged nineteen, he bolted a bellows camera to a microscope and made the first photograph of a snow crystal that anyone had ever made. That is what he is remembered for — five thousand crystals over forty-six winters, and the sentence everyone repeats without knowing whose it was: no two are alike.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSnow was only the winter half of it. The rest of the year he photographed dew, raindrops, frost — the whole of what water does when it is left alone. These are the plates nobody quotes, and they are the ones that show him as a photographer rather than a collector.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHere the geometry is not the water's but the spider's: the radial threads and the spiral, drawn out by an animal working in the dark, made visible by an animal working at dawn. The drops are strung along the silk at even intervals, the way beads are strung on a wire. That is surface tension, and it happens whether or not anyone is there with a camera.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plate is printed as a band that runs right round the mug. There is no centre and no edge to this pattern; wherever you set the mug down, the web carries on.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/wilson-bentley-snowflake-1905-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eSnowflake, c. 1905\u003c\/a\u003e · \u003ca href=\"\/products\/wilson-bentley-frost-1910-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eFrost, c. 1910\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilson Alwyn Bentley (1865–1931), [Dew on a Spider Web], c. 1910. Gelatin silver print, 7.6 × 9.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015.202, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2015. Open Access, CC0.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58240505774411,"sku":"e4361da6-3e84-421c-b32f-b74799e52a70","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Dew_Mug_1_front_3000_a3d9cd9c-4010-42b7-87e8-1c2ffca419ff.jpg?v=1787602375"},{"product_id":"william-henry-fox-talbot-articles-of-china-detail-1844-porcelain-art-mug","title":"William Henry Fox Talbot: Articles of China (Detail), 1844 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eWilliam Henry Fox Talbot\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eArticles of China (Detail)\u003c\/em\u003e, 1844\u003cbr\u003eSalted paper print from a paper negative, 13.7 × 18.2 cm\u003cbr\u003eArt Institute of Chicago, 2015\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003eCC0, public domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003ePorcelain photographed in 1843, printed on porcelain in 2026. Talbot set four shelves of china against a dark ground in the yard at Lacock Abbey, in full sun, because his paper needed it, and the sun is why the shadows fall the way they do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe had a reason beyond the display. In \u003cem\u003eThe Pencil of Nature\u003c\/em\u003e, the book this plate belongs to, he wrote that a photograph of a collection would be evidence in court if the objects were ever stolen — «mute testimony», he called it. This is the first argument ever made in print for photography as a record rather than a picture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a salted paper print from a paper negative: no glass, no plate, no sharp edge. The image sits in the fibres of the sheet, which is why the porcelain glows rather than gleams, and why the cups on the third shelf have gone soft where the light struck them hardest.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis mug carries a detail, not the whole plate: one vertical section of the shelves, from the top row to the bottom. The complete photograph is shown in the last product image. The printable field on a mug is about nine centimetres high; the full sheet is a wide one, and it would shrink to a stamp, so the mug takes a column of it — four shelves, thirteen pieces of china, cups and saucers among them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilliam Henry Fox Talbot, \u003cem\u003eArticles of China\u003c\/em\u003e, 1843–44. Salted paper print from a paper negative, image 13.7 × 18.2 cm, sheet 18.7 × 22.4 cm. Plate III of \u003cem\u003eThe Pencil of Nature\u003c\/em\u003e. Art Institute of Chicago, 2015.74. CC0, public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58368425034059,"sku":"57310553-41d9-4235-bf87-005d164a80af","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/6178437e-59f7-47b9-b016-2447c6eb5527.webp?v=1789024240"},{"product_id":"musee-entomologique-orchid-bee-and-passionflower-chrysantheda-frontalis-1878-art-mug","title":"Musée Entomologique: Orchid Bee and Passionflower (Chrysantheda frontalis), 1878 – Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eOrchid Bee and Passionflower (Chrysantheda frontalis)\u003c\/em\u003e, 1878\u003cbr\u003eHand-coloured wood engraving\u003cbr\u003eSmithsonian Libraries and Archives\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003ecourtesy of Smithsonian Libraries and Archives\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA green orchid bee hangs over the open passionflower, its body a hard metallic green the engraver built out of ruled lines and one wash of colour. The flower carries the picture: a crown of fine filaments, the three styles bent over the centre, and around it the leaves and coiling tendrils of the vine. At the lower left a second, smaller bee works the next blossom.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe sheet is \u003cem\u003eHyménoptères — Pl. VII\u003c\/em\u003e from the \u003cem\u003eMusée entomologique illustré\u003c\/em\u003e, the three-volume natural history that Jules Rothschild published in Paris between 1876 and 1878; this plate belongs to volume three, \u003cem\u003eLes Insectes\u003c\/em\u003e. The full plate sets four bees on one passionflower — \u003cem\u003eXylocopa morio\u003c\/em\u003e above, and three tropical American species: \u003cem\u003eChrysantheda frontalis\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eEuglossa romandi\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eCentris denudans\u003c\/em\u003e. This mug takes the middle of the plate, the flower itself with \u003cem\u003eChrysantheda frontalis\u003c\/em\u003e; the companion mug takes the carpenter bee above it. The fourth product image shows the whole sheet with the printed part marked, so the crop is visible for what it is.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe plates are wood engravings, coloured by hand one copy at a time, so no two are quite alike. What you see is the colouring of one particular copy — the one in the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, photographed anew for this edition at 850 ppi. Nothing has been repainted. The yellowing of the paper has been balanced out and the tone opened so that the engraved line carries on white porcelain; the hatching, the colour and the silhouette are as the sheet has them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same sheet\u003c\/strong\u003e — The carpenter bee at the top of the same plate is on its own mug: \u003ca href=\"\/products\/musee-entomologique-carpenter-bee-xylocopa-morio-1878-art-mug\"\u003eCarpenter Bee (Xylocopa morio)\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMusée entomologique illustré\u003c\/em\u003e, vol. 3, \u003cem\u003eLes Insectes\u003c\/em\u003e, Paris: J. Rothschild, 1878, plate \u003cem\u003eHyménoptères — Pl. VII\u003c\/em\u003e, central detail. Hand-coloured wood engraving. Digitised from the copy held by the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives; courtesy of Smithsonian Libraries and Archives. Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58413236715851,"sku":"ff13629d-d6e1-4a48-abf8-08c3f90bd065","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/e9c50366-c289-438d-8db3-66d829a85469.jpg?v=1788878196"}],"url":"https:\/\/tazzarte.com\/collections\/gifts-for-science-lovers.oembed","provider":"Tazzarte","version":"1.0","type":"link"}