Clarke put the same obsessive care into this fabric commission as he did into his stained-glass masterpieces. The original is in the National Gallery of Ireland. He drew it in 1918, between Poe commissions, for a Belfast fabric company. Beauty was never a sideline for him.
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Jewel-toned butterflies with the same obsessive linework Clarke brought to stained glass — just turned toward something lighter.
Butterfly Textile Design (1918–19)
While Clarke was deep in his illustrations for Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination, he was simultaneously working a commission for Sefton Fabrics in Belfast — handkerchief and dress fabric designs. He liked keeping several jobs running at once. This butterfly design is one of the finest things to come out of that parallel work: the same hand, a different register.
The original (NGI.7962) — ink and watercolour on paper, 23.6 × 18 cm — hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland.
About Harry Clarke (1889–1931)
Dublin-born and trained in the Arts and Crafts tradition, Clarke brought the intensity of stained-glass design into everything he touched — illustration, textile design, book covers, metalwork. He died of tuberculosis at 41. The work never went out of print.
