May 20th is World Bee Day! This is the perfect excuse to share this dress…
The 3rd Friday of May is Endangered Species Day. Although Vincent Van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) never traveled outside of Europe, he painted at least two different animals from faraway lands…
Happy World Binturong Day, celebrated annually on the 2nd Saturday in May! This watercolor of a Binturong is from the William Farquhar Collection of Natural History Drawings…
Fauna: Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) (Reminder: not really a bear! It’s a marsupial.)Flora: Western Wooden Pear (Xylomelum occidentale) (Also not a true pear.) While Marianne North is primarily known as a pioneering botanical artist of the nineteenth century, many of her paintings include native fauna as well. Her life’s work of…
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Compared to other well-known African ungulates like giraffes, hippos, & rhinos, zebras are rather rare in ancient mosaics. I’ve only been able to locate 5 examples, all Byzantine from the 5th-6th c…
January 31st is International Zebra Day! First up, images of the first known zebras imported into Great Britain.
Bonus: Exhibit A, spotted on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2020: This three-quarter view of John Bee Holmes (1760-1827) against a curtain backdrop was painted when the sitter was about six years old. He is shown looking at the viewer with a slight smile, his body turned…
Haori with Penguins and Icebreaker ShipsJapan, mid-Shōwa period, 1957-58silk plain weave, stencil-printed warp and weft[photos by author] Penguins (Spheniscidae) are found almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere, with only the Galápagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus) skirting the other side of the equator. They definitely aren’t native to anywhere near Japan! I saw…
For #AppreciateADragonDay, here are two versions of an illustration depicting Draco the dragon with the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor bear constellations. The first is from a medieval Carolingian illuminated manuscript known as the Leiden Aratea: Centuries later, Dutch humanist Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) acquired this manuscript and proceeded to publish…
January 14th is Feast of the Ass day! Yes, that’s a real thing — it originated as a niche Christian medieval feast day celebrated primarily in France as part of the Feast of Fools. I suppose that feast’s name should’ve prepared me for my encounter with this donkey dish at…
