1-sided Cute Angel Freeing Butterflies (M 068) Garden Flag

This charming flag for your butterfly-friendly garden by Saints_Aplenty on Zazzle features a young female angel gleefully freeing butterflies from the confines of an arched frame. + Upper panel: Clad in a high-waisted white robe, the young, female angel kneels against an aqua blue sky in a field of high grass populated with a flutter of butterflies. (Flutter is the proper collective noun for a group of butterflies.) The butterflies appear to be of assorted varieties. A simple arched frame contains the figures. With a big grin and upraised arms, the angel guides the butterflies toward a break in the border that gives access to a larger undifferentiated space freeing them from confinement. + Originally, this image appeared on an Ellen Clapsaddle Easter postcard. Ellen Hattie Clapsaddle (1865-1934) was a prolific American postcard and greeting card artist having produced over 3000 illustrations in her lifetime. Today, her artwork is just as popular as it was 100 years ago when it first appeared. She is particularly noted for her depictions of adorable, innocent, and joyful children. + Lower Panel: Lately, pollinator gardens—whether for bees or for butterflies—have become increasingly popular as a partial remedy to the dwindling populations of these important insects. Butterflies not only add beauty to the landscape but are essential to the ecosystem. In their caterpillar stage, butterflies are a valuable food source for other animals. As adults, butterflies play a pivotal role in pollinating plants and flowers, especially wildflowers and milkweed. And, butterflies are an indicator species, that is, their presence or absence is a gauge of environmental health. + Here, we illustrate the various stages in the lifecycle of the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus): egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and imago or adult butterfly. With its black, bright orange, tawny, and white coloration, Monarch butterflies are easily the most familiar North American butterfly. Monarchs have become a symbol of conservation and a fitting mascot for butterfly-friendly gardens in general. + Image Credit (M 068): Antique image of a Young Angel Freeing Butterflies from an early 20th-century postcard in chromolithography entitled A Joyful Easter by Ellen H. Clapsaddle, originally published by Wolf & Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, No. 1601, from the designer’s private collection of ephemera. Wolf & Co. hired Clapsaddle in 1906 as a full-time illustrator. Our postcard was mailed in 1921. + Image Credits (Butterflies): All of the Monarch images are from WikiMedia Commons and are in the Public Domain.