Fine art print of the original watecolor/gouache drawing by Albrecht Dürer from 1505.

The stunning artwork measures a mere 14.1 x 11.4 centimeters and belongs to the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Dürer depicted the insect as an independent subject rather than a preparatory sketch for a larger composition, which departed from the artistic conventions of the early sixteenth century. He used opaque gouache to build the form of the beetle's body and applied a transparent wash to cast a shadow on the right, giving the creature a sense of three-dimensional volume. At the bottom of the page, Dürer signed the work with his monogram, shaping the letters to mirror the curves of the beetle's mandibles.