Buddleia

Judith Rothchild

A stem of buddleia, or butterfly bush as it is commonly known, springs from the mouth of a small, dark bottle in Judith Rothchild’s uncluttered mezzotint. She’s chosen a large format for the composition which further amplifies the simple beauty of the flower, and her stunning ability to manipulate the laborious medium into a spectrum of delicate, heavy, and graduated tonalities is never more apparent than in “Buddleia”.

Unlike her ususal mezzotints Rothchild burnished the foreground and background of the plate so only the central mezzotinted area of the composition printed.

There are 140 species of buddleia, over 60 of which are native in the Americas, Africa, or parts of Asia. In the United States certain blossoms are major attractants for native pollinators, including the endangered Monarch butterfly, and are key to healthy ecosystems.