Vanessa (butterfly) poem "Cadenus and Vanessa," which is the source of the woman's name Vanessa. In the poem Vanessa is called a "nymph" eleven times, and the genus is closely related to the previously-named genus Nymphalis. Though the name has been suggested to be a variant of "Phanessa", from the name of an Ancient Greek deity, this is unlikely. The name of the deity is actually not "Phanessa" but Phanes. Johan Christian Fabricius, the entomologist who named this genus, normally used the original forms of the names of classical divinities when he created new scientific names. North American species in the genus
Vanessa (Millais painting) been described as an "almost violently modern" handling of paint. Esther Vanhomrigh is known as "Swift's Vanessa" because of the fictional name he gave her when he published their correspondence. The portrait is wholly imaginary. No image of Esther Vanhomrigh survives and we know very little about her actual appearance, although she was said "not to be a beauty". She is holding a letter, presumably written to or from Swift. Her sad expression is related to the fraught nature of the relationship, which was broken up by Swift's relationship with another woman, Esther Johnson, whom he called "Stella", whom he