Jewel Beetle (303)

Ellen Terry, a renowned Shakespearean actress, was immortalised as Lady Macbeth in an 1889 portrait by John Singer Sargent. In that painting she is seen in a spectacular green dress, crocheted to look like chainmail, embroidered with gold and decorated with a thousand iridescent wings from the green jewel beetle, which shed their colourful wings naturally. The dress is preserved within the Ellen Terry Museum at Smallhythe Place, the half-timbered Kent farmhouse she fell in love with and bought in 1899.