Helleborus niger and Butterfly

Barbara Regina Dietzsch (1706-1783) was a celebrated painter at the Court of Nuremberg, a center for botanical art and science in eighteenth-century Europe. Descended from the Dietzsch artist dynasty, she and her siblings were trained in the workshop of her father, the botanical painter Johann Israel Dietzsch. Of the seven Dietzsch siblings, six would become professional artists, and two would follow Barbara Regina to serve the Court of Nuremberg.

In her youth, Dietzsch developed a unique practice of layering gouache over gold leaf on vellum, accentuating the strong contrast between her botanical and zoological subjects and their dark backgrounds. This painting, Helleborus niger and Butterfly, depicts a hellebore with roots exposed and two blooms on long slender stems, one of which is shown from behind. Dietzsch often added insects or birds to her botanical illustrations, in keeping with an iconographic tradition initiated by Flemish painter Jan van Kessel. In this particular piece, Dietzsch has added a tortoiseshell butterfly, Aglais urticae.

Dietzsch was a prolific draftswoman and painter, and her works were engraved and printed in numerous publications during her lifetime. Her work was in high demand and remains immediately distinguishable by its great decorativeness and scientific realism.