Keeping To Illustrations In Old Books Or Display Cabinets,

here are a couple,

illustrations The National Gallery, they are the work of Jan van Kessel the Elder (baptized 5 April 1626, Antwerp - 17 April 1679, Antwerp), a Flemish painter, his output included landscapes, genre scenes, allegories, marine paintings, studies of insects, and floral still-life's, the one above, Insects with Common Hawthorn and Forget-Me-Not,

Insects with Creeping Thistle and Borage both can be viewed in Room 17 at the National Gallery,

image credit The Fitzwilliam Museum, one of the artist's still life's,

if you have time grab a coffee for the above video looking at van Kessel's tiny insect paintings, and if you are thinking of buying one to hang on your wall, originals do sometimes come up for sale,

like this one, Butterflies, a moth, ladybird and other insects with a sprig of auricular, oil on copper, offered at Sotheby’s estimate £200,000 to £300,000, but the fact is that I enjoy looking at the painstaking work of artists like this who illustrated books in those days that photographs were not around.