painting (tempera): ["Shell and Comma Butterfly"] aka ["Shell and Comma Bunch (sic)"]

A still life with a glass jug containing spring flowers, including lily-of-the-valley, forget-me-not, viola, polyanthus, anemone. A butterfly rests on a leaf at left. There is a shell [on the table] at lower right and at left a ribbon with 'OP463'., The Comma (Polygonia c-album) is a species of butterfly, common in the United Kingdom and with a distribution across Europe and temperate Asia to Japan and south to Morocco. Similar species are found in the United States and Canada. It has a white marking on its underwings resembling a comma. The wings have a distinctive ragged edge, apparently a cryptic form as the butterfly resembles a fallen leaf. The caterpillars are also cryptic, resembling a bird dropping. In the 19th century the British population of comma butterflies crashed, and by 1920 there were only two sightings. The cause for this decline is unknown, and from about 1930 the population recovered and it is now one of the more familiar butterflies in Southern England, and is now resident in Scotland and in North Wales. [Wikipedia],