A praying mantis, two longhorn beetles, a grasshopper in flight and other insects

Pieter Withoos was the second son of the Dutch painter Matthias Withoos (1627-1703). Closely following in the footsteps of his father, Pieter established himself with his accurate depictions of a variety of plants, flowers, birds, and insects. Withoos’s drawings, often part of albums, were actively commissioned and collected during his lifetime.The artist appears to have used the same specimens in different drawings. For example, the praying mantis and the band-winged grasshopper at upper right depicted here appear also in a sheet in the Harvard Art Museums (inv. 1999.182; see Anderson, op. cit., no. 99, ill.) with only small variations in their poses.