French

These French apparel textiles from the 1930s and the 19th-century Chinese joined-apron (gun) both set the butterfly on a contrasting dark background embellished
with silk and metallic yarns. This dramatic artistic device not only evokes a painterly quality, but also alludes to the deeper symbolism of the butterfly: as an embodiment of metamorphosis. Both the Chinese and the Mycenaean Greeks associated the butterfly with rebirth, resurrection, immortality, and longevity, and the butterfly was seen as a symbol of the soul by some pre-Hispanic cultures and by the Greeks, for whom the butterfly was represented by Psyche.