Le Voyage dans la Lune – Promotional Sketch, Moon Face with Rocket Eye, c.1902

What makes this sketch startling is its rawness — this appears to be a preparatory drawing or rough promotional poster for Georges Méliès' landmark 1902 film, capturing the iconic moon face with a rocket embedded in its eye. Rendered in loose, energetic pen-and-ink, the anthropomorphic moon grimaces with theatrical pain while the cylindrical projectile juts from its socket. The hand-lettered French text trumpets the film as unpublished, sensational, and extraordinary — carnival barker energy at the dawn of cinema.