Why? Why? It’s always about choice unless it’s about obedience to a command, but that simply shifts the origin of the question over to another person. Why is this image chosen? Those three birds? The broken barrel (is it?)? And the lovely insects, so delicately rendered, around the edge. But wouldn’t bugs on the plate disturb most of the users? Flying bugs at that. I know no entomology and couldn’t identify a single one, except to say one is some kind of moth, and the plated bug is probably a nymph not an imago. But I do know that enthusiasm for small creatures like these is a special taste, not shared with the great majority. So beyond “why?” – what was intended?
The plate is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
http://images.metmuseum.org/CRDImages/es/original/133717.jpg