Balloon Crash Night Scene — Jules Verne's 'Five Weeks in a Balloon' 1863

Drawn directly from Jules Verne's 'Cinq Semaines en Ballon' (Five Weeks in a Balloon, 1863), this dramatic engraving depicts the stricken Victoria balloon entangled in its own rigging, its deflating silk canopy cascading down in wild diagonal lines against a storm-lit night sky. Three figures on the ground — explorers helpless before the spectacle — watch as the great aeronautical machine collapses. Riou's masterful cross-hatching conjures both the terror and grandeur of early aerial adventure over the African continent.