The Swallow-Tail Moth (Phalæna sambucaria), The Bramble (Rubus fruticosus) (1773)
悬钩子属
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast amber
- slightly upright 1.27 : 1
First Look
凡画山水，意在笔先。
—— 唐·王维《山水论》
In painting, the intention precedes the brush.
Slightly taller than wide; the eye lands above centre. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
Name and Thing
Only the genus Rubus is given; species-level names came later. The Chinese name 悬钩子属 is a modern rendering of the Latin, not an old garden name.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 2.7% of the sheet, foliage 8.8%, the cast amber with a second note of yellow-green. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Fruit plates pair the whole fruit with a section: the outline identifies the variety, the cut reveals skin thickness, core size and seed arrangement — the evidence of registration.No colour group is recorded. A single plant, laid out with nothing hidden.
Composition
The sheet is slightly tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 20% of the sheet, centred near the centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
Eighteenth-century plates are mostly copper engraving: hatched lines for shadow, then hand-colouring by another hand. There is evidence on the back too: the plate mark pressed into the paper, the slight relief of the pigment, lines worn shallow in a later printing. If you mean to copy it: take its skeleton, its margins and the order of its colours; the burin's hatching is the language of copper — suggest it with pencil density, do not imitate it stroke for stroke.
Poetic Resonance
荔枝新熟鸡冠色，烧酒初开琥珀香。
—— 唐·白居易《荔枝楼对酒》
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the fruit becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In China the pomegranate means many sons, the peach long life, the orange good fortune; in Europe the apple is temptation and knowledge, the grape abundance and sacrifice. Flower language was added later; the flower knows nothing of it, and that innocence is part of its power.
Season and Place
a fruit portfolio spans the whole harvest. Temperate fruits came mostly from Eurasia, later from the Americas. Nineteenth-century nurseries printed varietal albums for trade and exhibition: every fruit on the page was a saleable claim. The year 1749 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. See this kind of plate in the flowering season if you can: once you have met the living flower, you stop reading only colour.
The Book and the Hand
“Benjamin Wilkes” carries only Benjamin Wilkes's name. A plate is collective work: drawer, engraver and colourist were different hands, and the unnamed ones decided how good it looks.
What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1749 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
The Swallow-Tail Moth (Phalæna sambucaria), The Bramble (Rubus fruticosus) (1773) is plate 43, from Benjamin Wilkes, drawn by Benjamin Wilkes. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: English, ?-1749.
