Cattle on the Moon — Flammarion's 'Autour de la Lune' Italian Edition, c.1870s
A cool blue-grey starfield punctuated by hand-printed white stars envelops a richly crosshatched lunar globe, lending the scene an eerie, otherworldly calm that perfectly underscores Verne's cosmic absurdism. Perched impossibly atop the Moon's cratered surface, a horned bull and smaller cattle stand silhouetted against infinite space — a surreal juxtaposition of the pastoral and the astronomical. The dual signatures of Flammarion and engraver É.B. confirm this as a canonical Victorian sci-fi artifact.
Quietly surreal rather than lurid — cattle on the Moon is a wonderfully strange image, but the Victorian engraving restraint keeps the fever-dream in check. A must-see for fans of early Verne illustration who appreciate deadpan cosmic weirdness.
“112 INTORNO ALLA LUNA. Alle prime osservazioni non si erano ancora scoperte le scanalature nè Evelius, nè Cassini, nè La Hire, nè Herschell, par che le avessero conosciute. Fu Schroeter che nel”
