Mass Migration to the South Pole — Robida's Sans Dessus Dessous, 1889
Created in the late Victorian era when Jules Verne's scientific romances were reshaping popular imagination, this hand-colored illustration depicts a desperate mass exodus of humanity trudging through icy mountain passes toward the South Pole. Likely from a French édition illustrée of Verne's 'Sans Dessus Dessous' (1889), in which a mad scheme tilts Earth's axis, forcing global migration. The chromolithographic coloring — muted blues, warm ochres, and a striking red cloak — gives the refugee column an almost painterly humanity amid apocalyptic cold.
Restrained by pulp standards — no ray guns or monsters — but the premise (Earth's axis shifted by cannon fire forcing global evacuation) is gloriously unhinged Vernian pseudoscience. The human pathos is genuine, not melodramatic.
“L'Émigration vers le Pôle Sud.”
