Pieter Cramer (1721-1776)

Pieter Cramer (1721-1776) was a Merchant in Spanish wool with a great interest in and collection of butterflies.

The painter Gerrit Wartenaar Lambertz was commissioned to paint the butterflies in Cramer's collection and they appear in CRAMER, P. & STOLL, C. Papillons Exotiques des Trois Parties du Monde l'Asie, l'Afrique et l'Amerique/, published in the late 1700s.

Cramer was the primary author and his work is celebrated as the first book on Exotic Butterflies arranged according to the Linnean method.

Unfortunately Cramer died in 1777, before the work was finished and C. Stoll completed the project.

Cramer is credited with naming/describing two North American Catocala species: Catocala ilia and Catocala grynea.

He named a great many species belonging to other genera.

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