A while back I visited the splendid new Getty Museum in Los Angeles. I loved it except that there were no butterflies in the sumptuous gardens. As is often the case with institutional gardens like these, the gardeners insist on spraying. The result? No pests, but no butterflies either, so the gardens have an artificial ambience about them.

During my visit, the museum was featuring a relatively unknown Italian painter named Dosso Dossi, who lived from 1489 to 1542. One of the most prominently placed paintings by this brilliant artist was titled “Jupiter and Mercury”, from 1529. It features a painter, perhaps Dossi himself, at work out of doors, guarded by the god Mercury from the god Jupiter who seems to want to interrupt the painter. The museum’s description of the work makes much of the fact that the subject of the painter’s work-in-progress is three beautiful butterflies flitting about against a clear blue sky. The description suggests that even the business of a god like Jupiter must wait for an artist who is working on something as special as gorgeous butterflies.

Having glanced first at the painting itself, I turned back (as any WABA member would do) to see if I could identify the three butterflies. Hello! They weren’t butterflies at all! They were some other kind of moth. As usual, the antennae were a dead giveaway. This was probably not the error of the painter Dosso Dossi, I thought; he may well have thought that these moths were worth Mercury’s protection as much as butterflies would have been. No, more likely it was the museum staff person who chose to stress the unique beauty of the butterflies as the reason for one god’s rebuffing the other. During my visit, the museum was featuring a relatively unknown Italian painter named Dosso Dossi, who lived from 1489 to 1542. One of the most prominently placed paintings by this brilliant artist was titled “Jupiter and Mercury”, from 1529. It features a painter, perhaps Dossi himself, at work out of doors, guarded by the god Mercury from the god Jupiter who seems to want to interrupt the painter. The museum’s description of the work makes much of the fact that the subject of the painter’s work-in-progress is three beautiful butterflies flitting about against a clear blue sky. The description suggests that even the business of a god like Jupiter must wait for an artist who is working on something as special as gorgeous butterflies. Having glanced first at the painting itself, I turned back (as any WABA member would do) to see if I could identify the three butterflies. Hello! They weren’t butterflies at all! They were some other kind of moth.

As usual, the antennae were a dead giveaway. This was probably not the error of the painter Dosso Dossi, I thought; he may well have thought that these moths were worth Mercury’s protection as much as butterflies would have been. No, more likely it was the museum staff person who As I hope any WABA member would have done, I determined at once to set the matter right. I went immediately to the museum’s main desk. There I told my story to an official-looking young lady. Looking gravely at me, she asked if I would be willing to detail the particulars of the alleged error on an official looking piece of paper which she held out to me. I, of course, indicated that I would be please to do so. She assured me that the matter would promptly receive the attention of the appropriate museum officer. I filed the report and left the museum. Unfortunately, I had to leave for Seattle later that day so I wasn’t able to follow up on my selfless effort. But I left L.A. with a feeling of inordinate self-satisfaction. Being an amateur lepidopterist has more uses than one might expect.

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