Look closely at 15th- and 16th-century European portraits and you keep finding a housefly, on the frame, the sitter's sleeve, or an open page. Painted at life size, on purpose.
Renaissance painters kept adding a realistic fly to their portraitsLook closely at a lot of 15th- and 16th-century European portraits and you'll find a housefly sitting on the frame, the sitter's sleeve, or a page of an open book…boingboing.net