Gustave Doré's Flying Ship Over the Sea — Baron Munchausen, 1862

A sailing vessel tears free of earthly ocean entirely, ascending dramatically into a turbulent moonlit sky above churning waves and wheeling seabirds. The full, luminous moon looms enormous behind the ship's dark silhouette, its sails shredded and rigging wild, as storm clouds swirl around the impossible ascent. This is Baron Munchausen's legendary aerial voyage — fantastic travel literature at its most visually delirious, rendered in Doré's signature dramatic chiaroscuro engraving.