Butterfly People

Traveller by the Side of the Road

Lady of the Butterflies

The Traveller's Route

The Lama Strolls

She Hovers in the Air

The Bolero

Everything Begins and Ends With Marriage

Vestal Virgin from Rio Colorado

Burning Wings Too Close to the Flames of Love

Christmas Tree

Grooming

Pierre Amédée Varin (1818-1883) [obit.] was the eldest of three engraver brothers from the Champagne region of France. He came from a long family line of artist/engravers that stretched back to the 17th century [Jean Varin]. Most of his engraving work was done in partnership with his brother, Eugene.

The anthropomorphic illustrations above come from a 2-volume set: 'Papillons - Metamorphoses Terrestres Des Peuples De L'Air', published by Gabriel de Gonet in 1852. It will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the illustrations of JJ Grandville to learn that Varin had contributed some engraving work to Grandville's 1843 classic, 'Les Fleurs Animées'.

I saw no real mention of the nature of the text (by Eugene Nus and Antony Meray) that accompanied Varin's 35 hand coloured steel engravings - no doubt suitably odd, what with the inclusion of Chinese and American Indian motifs with the butterfly characters. Varin also published another outlandish anthropomorphic book, in ~1851: 'L’Empire des Légumes', which portrays people as vegetables. (Some more conservative images)

From what I can divine, both of these books are exceedingly rare so it was sheer luck that I discovered a fair number of plates from both have been recently posted at Panteek Prints. Butterflies and Vegetables (also).

Most of the above images (background cleaned and watermark eviscerated) do come from Panteek, but a few were found at Shigitatsu and here.

The illustration below ['The Fairy Queen'] has nothing to do with Varin but it's in the same imagery ballpark and I've been holding the link for a while. There are a number of illustrations from 'In Fairy Land. A series of pictures from the elf-world by Richard Doyle. With a poem by W. Allingham' 1870, at the British Library.