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Author: Mike

Adolphe Millot Papillons exotic butterflies print - smaller size
Adolphe Millot’s Papillons Exotiques – The Butterflies of South-East Asia

Adolphe Millot’s Papillons Exotiques – The Butterflies of South-East Asia

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If you’re a regular haunter of museum gift shops (not an outrageous assumption if you’re reading this blog), you’ve probably seen this design before. Several dozen brightly coloured butterflies and moths, adorning teatowels, wall prints and postcards in a quaint Belle Epoque style. But who created this delightful piece of antique scientific illustration? Little is known about Adolphe Millot (1857-1921), the Parisian dessinateur responsible for this and many other plates depicting a wide variety of animals and plants, both European…

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Jim Hislop at Kuala Tahan
Jim Hislop, Unconventional Soldier and the Last White Game Warden of Malaya (Part 1)

Jim Hislop, Unconventional Soldier and the Last White Game Warden of Malaya (Part 1)

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In the 1930s the Malay Peninsula was almost entirely covered in jungle. Malaya, as the collection of British territories was known pre-independence, was a key producer of rubber. The rubber tree, indigenous to Brazil, grew just as well in the Far East and quickly rose to become one of Malaya’s key cash crops. Rubber plantations dotted the peninsula. Employment on these large estates attracted workers from the UK and Europe, and it was as one of these transplants to the…

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Peninsular Malaysia in the 1960s
Jim Hislop, Unconventional Soldier and the Last White Game Warden of Malaya (Part 2)

Jim Hislop, Unconventional Soldier and the Last White Game Warden of Malaya (Part 2)

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(Continued from Part 1 here) Rumbles in the Jungle After the war ended, Hislop returned to Scotland to convalesce. Naturally, he planned to return to his beloved Malaya as soon as possible, and hoped to finally trade in his role as a rubber planter for one as a game warden. In April 1946 he once again took up residence in his old rubber estate. Ever keen to improve his junglecraft, he began to hear whispers and rumours, and saw for…

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Malay Weaponry from Le Costume Historique 1
Weaponry and Standards from the Malay World, illustrated by Albert Racinet

Weaponry and Standards from the Malay World, illustrated by Albert Racinet

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This plate is taken from Volume 3 of “Le Costume Historique” (1888), a series of volumes illustrated by French artist and costume historian Albert Racinet detailing dress and everyday objects from around the world. I have reproduced a scan of the plate below, as well as an outline that more clearly shows the numbering of the figures. I have translated the accompanying text into English, and provided scans of the original French so you can check my work.    …

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