Review: Butterflies (French Feves)

An overview of some butterfly figurines as French Feves!

After recently reading about a porcelain French feve figure on the DTB, I decided to investigate and see if I could find insects in this medium. As it turns out there are a lot of butterflies (and a few moths)! I do not know the exact manufacturer of any of these, unfortunately, but I figured the Reviews section was still the best place to highlight them.

Feves (there is an accent there but I haven’t figured out how to make them yet…) are French porcelain figurines designed to be put into Mardi Gras epiphany cakes! They are quite small (the butterflies below are 2-3 cm across their widest points) and quite charming. Some are more realistic than others. Nearly all appear to be clearly modeled after actual species.

I bought some belonging to three different sets. No idea if these are complete or not. Those marked with an asterisk (*) are new species for my insect collection.

Set 1:
These are more realistic of all those shown here. They depict lepidopterans from all over the world! Four of them are new species for me. When I first saw the set online, I attempted to apply species names based on the pic. When the figures arrived today, they actually had the Latin or French names on the underside and I was happy I had them all correct, except for [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] which I initially didn’t have a clue on.

1. blue pansy, Junonia orithya*
2. scarce bamboo page, Philaethria dido*
3. common postman, Heliconius melpomene*
4. cecropia moth, Hyalophora cecropia
5. Old World swallowtail, Papilio machaon
6. paper kite, Idea leuconoe
7. monarch, Danaus plexippus
8. common blue morpho, Morpho peleides (although this is the coloration of the underside!)
9. European peacock, Aglais io
10. blue peacock, Papilio arcturus* (could this be the unknown swallowtail in the Steal Street set?)

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Set 2:
These figures all have their French names painted on the bases (which is good, because it made identifying them easier—they are not as realistic as the previous batch!). All of them represent European (and presumably, French) species, which is nice to get a geographically-specialized set! The French names below are what is printed on the figures, I supply their English and Latin names. Three of them are new species for me.

1. La Goutte de sang (cinnabar moth, Tyria jacobaeae)*
2. Le Bronze (small copper, Lycaena phlaeas)
3. Le Monarque (monarch, Danaus plexippus)
4. Le Citron (common brimstone, Gonepteryx rhamni)
5. Le Robert-le-Diable (comma, Polygonia c-album)*
6. L’ Azure Commun (common blue, Polyommatus icarus)*
7. Le Demi-Deuil (marbled white, Melanargia galathea)
8. Le Grande Apollon (mountain Apollo, Parnassius apollo)
9. Le Peon de jour (European peacock, Aglais io)
10. Le Grand Porte-Queue (Old World Swallowtail, Papilio machaon)

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Set 3:
There are two here and they are probably part of a larger set.

1. European peacock, Aglais io
2. Cypris morpho, Morpho cypris

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Very nice :)