{"product_id":"musee-entomologique-carpenter-bee-xylocopa-morio-1878-art-mug","title":"Musée Entomologique: Carpenter Bee (Xylocopa morio), 1878 – Art Mug","description":"\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\u003eFine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\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":"Default Title","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","url":"https:\/\/tazzarte.com\/products\/musee-entomologique-carpenter-bee-xylocopa-morio-1878-art-mug","provider":"Tazzarte","version":"1.0","type":"link"}