Benjamin Wilkes
Encyclopedia
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Wilkes' profession was 'painting of History Pieces and Portraits in Oyl'. When a friend invited him to a meeting of the Aurelian Society
Society of Entomologists of London
The Society of Entomologists of London was one of a series of brief-lived entomological societies based in London.The members met to exhibit, identify and exchange, sell or purchase insects which were sometimes very expensive as were books. Entomology was limited to the wealthy...
, where he first saw specimens of butterflies and moths, he became convinced that nature would be his 'best instructor' as to colour and form in art. He began to study entomology
Entomology
Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
spending his leisure time collecting, studying and drawing the imagos larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e, pupae and parasitic flies (Tachinidae
Tachinidae
Tachinidae is a large and rather variable family of true flies within the insect order Diptera, with more than 8,200 known species and many more to be discovered. There are over 1300 species in North America. Insects in this family are commonly called tachina flies or simply tachinids...
and Ichneumonidae
Ichneumonidae
Ichneumonidae is a family within the insect order Hymenoptera. Insects in this family are commonly called ichneumon wasps. Less exact terms are ichneumon flies , or scorpion wasps due to the extreme lengthening and curving of the abdomen...
) of Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
, assisted by the collector Mr Joseph Dandridge
Joseph Dandridge
Joseph Dandridge , was an English silk-pattern designer of Huguenot descent, a natural history illustrator, an amateur naturalist specialising in entomology, and a leading figure in the Society of Aurelians of which he was a founder member.Despite having left no published works, and not being part...
. Wilkes' own collection was kept 'against the Horn Tavern in Fleet Street' London 'Where any gentleman or lady' could see his collection of insects.
Works
- 1742 Twelve new designs of English butterflies. This rare work consisted solely of twelve engraved plates each depicting geometric arrangements of both butterflies and moths. It depicts seven hawkmoths. The captions to each provide information on the time of emergence, hostplants and occurrence of the caterpillar.
- 1749 English moths and butterflies. More ambitious, this work ran to three editions of which the last, incorporating Linnaean nomenclature, was published in 1824.