Animal Friendly Framed Butterflies

Always when I see those pretty blue butterflies mounted in a frame, I find them so sad. Little fragile pieces of colorful freedom. Therefore I made a growing series of water color butterflies, just like the mounted butterflies: in box frames. 

Framed mounted butterflies

Is mounting real butterflies cruel? In my search I came across this article by Lindsey van Leeuwen:

'The butterflies often come from special butterfly farms from Asia and South America. On those farms they are not allowed to flutter around until they literally fall down. Butterflies that have completed their lives are often no longer in perfect condition. The wings are damaged, they have a snapped feeler or they are affected by other insects shortly after their death. In short: flying butterflies are not beautiful enough to frame.

But how do you get a flawless butterfly, without a single damage? De Keuringsdienst van Waarde also wondered about this. In this episode they went in search of the answer. Sellers in the Netherlands did not dare to burn their hands, as did the middlemen. No one wanted to give the true answer. Except for a butterfly farm in China. When the butterfly comes out of its cocoon, it is put alive in a bag. The butterfly can no longer move its wings and slowly dies; with a bit of luck, that will happen within a week. After that, it is ready to serve as home decoration. Read the full article here in dutch.'

My growing series animal friendly framed butterflies

So there you have it. I'll go on painting all kinds of butterflies and I'm going to try to make them so beautuiful, that people prefer to buy mine instead of the real ones.

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