Hubert Duprat is a French artist known for his unusual work, an artistic intersection between

caddisfly The caddisflies, or order Trichoptera, are a group of insects with aquatic larvae and terrestrial adults. There are approximately 14,500 described species, most of which can be divided into the suborders Integripalpia and Annulipalpia on the ...

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

opal Opal is a hydrated amorphous form of silica (SiO2·''n''H2O); its water content may range from 3 to 21% by weight, but is usually between 6 and 10%. Due to its amorphous property, it is classified as a mineraloid, unlike crystalline forms ...

turquoise Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of yea ...

and other precious stones. Caddisfly larvae live in fresh water and naturally construct elaborate protective tubes for themselves from materials found in their environment. Under natural conditions they use the objects found in their stream bed homes such as pieces of wood, fragments of fish bone or

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

shell, grains of sand, plant debris and small stones. The tubes serve various purposes; the stones are used to increase traction in fast-moving streams, they serve as disguise for the soft-bodied insect and the spiky bits make the tube and thus, the fly larva, more difficult for

predators Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill th ...

to swallow. Duprat, born in 1957, began his work with caddisfly larvae in the early 1980s. He collects the larvae from their normal environments and he takes them to his studio. There he gently removes their own natural cases and puts the larvae in tanks filled with his own materials, from which they begin to build their new protective sheaths. When he began the project, he only provided the caddis larvae with gold flakes. Since then, they have enjoyed various semi-precious and precious stones, including turquoise,

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

and

lapis lazuli Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, ...

, as well as

sapphire Sapphire is a precious gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum, consisting of aluminium oxide () with trace amounts of elements such as iron, titanium, chromium, vanadium, or magnesium. The name sapphire is derived via the Latin "sapphir ...

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

rubies A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sap ...

, and

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the Chemical stability, chemically stable form of car ...

Works

Duprat in Venice 2.jpg Duprat in Venice 4.jpg Duprat in Venice 6.jpg Duprat in Venice 7.jpg

External links

Zymoglyphic Museum Curator's Blog - "Designer" Jewelry with Insect LarvaeCabinet Magazine Online - Artist Project / Trichopterae
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090928225903/http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/09/precious_larvae.html Make: Precious larvaebr>Sculpted by Larvae: The Experiments of Hubert Duprat
* ttps://tousiattarjewelers.com/blogs/news/ Turquoise Jewelry {{DEFAULTSORT:Duprat, Hubert French mixed-media artists French contemporary artists Trichoptera Living people 1957 births