Albert Robida's Future Warships — La Vie Électrique, c.1890

A fleet of monstrous armored warships of tomorrow crowds a choppy sea, their hulls bristling with massive gun turrets, cylindrical fortified towers, observation domes, and signal masts — half medieval fortress, half iron leviathan. Robida's visionary pen conjures a future naval arms race in astonishing mechanical detail, with three behemoth vessels dominating the composition and smaller craft lurking on the horizon, every rivet and porthole rendered in obsessive cross-hatched ink.