Henry Dalton's MicroMosiacs

Every once in a while I am just overcome with longing for a certain object. I’m not a fancy car or mega-mansion kind of person at all—that type of status doesn’t really interest me. Unfortunately, most of the things I really adore are not available for sale!

These exceptionally beautiful pictures are collages made from the scales of butterfly wings.

They were made by Henry Dalton and reside at The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles.

The museum itself is an astonishing place! The theme of the museum is about as opaque as the name. There are exhibits of sculptures mounted on the heads of pins, illustrations of common superstitions, a collection of dice, and other peculiar objects.

Please go if you’re in Los Angeles! It’s free and a wonderfully unsettling experience. More like being a Victorian curiosity cupboard than a museum.

After you’ve absorbed a strange film and examined some models of erosion and fetuses, you find yourself in a dim room containing a large table mounted with many microscopes. There’s relatively little explanation, but as your curiosity grows you peek into one of them. Gorgeous iridescent chickens greet your eye.

They are mosaics. Dalton used many species of butterflies and stripped the scales off the wings with a needle. He then positioned the scales under a microscope, positioning each one with a puff of air through a tiny tube. When it was settled to his satisfaction, he would crush a small segment of the scale, using the natural oils to adhere it to the slide.

The slides themselves are tiny, about the size of a nickel. There’s a small case, perhaps as big as a deck of cards, where they all can be stored.

I love the idea of tremendously beautiful objects that can only be appreciated under a microscope, like if you’ve ever examined a spider with a magnifying glass and seen a cute and fuzzy multi-eyed face.