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Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings
The great comet of 1881, Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, 1881, chromolithograph. Jay T. Last Collection. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. priJLC_SCI_002976.
Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings
Portfolio cover (cropped) for Trouvelot's Astronomical Prints, 1881, Jay T. Last Collection. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings, is a set of 15 artistic prints published in 1882. These prints depict planets, comets, and astronomical phenomena. No one knows how many copies of this set were originally printed, but experts estimate the number is close to 300. Astronomy libraries and observatories purchased these sets for $125 (calculating for inflation, this would be over $4,000 today). The libraries and observatories were willing to invest in these prints because they were valuable reference tools for the scientists studying the planets, comets, and astronomical phenomena.
However, early 20th century advances in photography meant that astronomers soon had access to smaller and more accurate depictions of the same objects and phenomena. Many libraries and observatories discarded or sold their portfolios, often breaking the portfolio into individual artworks. Because of this, it is uncommon to have a full set. By looking at this full set, we get a rare look into the scope of one self-taught person’s artistic and scientific achievements.
Failure and Perseverance
Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, n.d., Lick Observatory, University of California. Photograph © UC Regents/Lick Observatory
Étienne Léopold Trouvelot (1827-1895) arrived in the United States as a political refugee from totalitarian France. When he first arrived in the United States, he supported his family as an artist and nature illustrator. His primary interest was in entomology, the study of bugs. He was a member of the Boston Society of Natural History and conducted his own experiments and studies in the woods by his house in Medford, Massachusetts. It is in his work as a self-taught entomologist that Trouvelot made one of the most devastating mistakes in the history of ecology: He accidentally unleashed the spongy moth (Lymantria dispar) into North America. In the decades after their release, the spongy moth spread throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic regions. The impact of Trouvelot’s mistake continues into present day as the moth’s current invasion front stretches from North Carolina across to Minnesota. View historical photographs and learn more about the efforts to prevent the spread of the spongy moth at the USDA Fire Service’s website.
This mistake brought the end of Trouvelot’s entomological ambitions. He could have let this mistake be the end of his career as a nature illustrator, but he chose to start again, this time in astronomy. Astronomy was a popular science in the second half of the 19th century because telescopes were affordable in a way they had never been previously. Middle class people could get telescopes, look up, and start learning about space. This is what Trouvelot did.
If Trouvelot had given up after his colossal failure as an entomologist, the prints we are looking at would never have existed. His perseverance was key to his success as an astronomer and an artist.
Have you ever made a mistake? A really big mistake? How did you respond?
Observations and Illustrations
After teaching himself how to create astronomical illustrations, Trouvelot reached out to the Harvard College Observatory. They were impressed with his work and hired Trouvelot to create artistic depictions of astronomical objects and phenomena. A few years later, the U.S. Naval Observatory invited him to use their 26-inch refracting telescope. This was the biggest refracting telescope at the time, and it allowed Trouvelot to study the sky in the greatest possible detail. Trouvelot used this 26-inch telescope to help him create many of the prints in the set.
“A well-trained eye alone is capable of seizing the delicate details of structure and configuration of the heavenly bodies.” Trouvelot
How did Trouvelot train his eye? How did he bring the accuracy of what he was seeing through his telescope onto the pages of his original drawings? Watch Krystle Satrum, curator of the Huntington’s Radiant Beauty exhibition on Trouvelot, explain.
In this published set of prints, Trouvelot accompanies each illustration with a written description of his observations. Look at this print of the great comet of 1881 and read the written description below.
The great comet of 1881, Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, 1881, chromolithograph. Jay T. Last Collection. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. priJLC_SCI_002976.
PLATE XI. THE GREAT COMET OF 1881.
Observed on the night of June 25-26, at Ih. 30m. A. M.
A view of the comet 1881, drawn as if seen with the naked eye, the minute details, however, being reproduced as seen with the telescope. The star-like nucleus is attended by four conical wings which cause it to appear diamond-shaped. The coma appears double, the brilliant inner coma, immediately enveloping the nucleus, being surrounded by a fainter exterior coma, which has a noticeable depression corresponding to that of the inner edge of the principal coma. The tail is divided lengthwise by a dark rift and is brightest on its convex or forward side. An inner portion of the tail, brighter than the rest, is more strongly curved, as if by solar repulsion. Stars are seen through the brighter parts of the tail, as they may be seen even through the coma and nucleus, with little diminution of their light.
Questions & Prompts
Look closely at this chromolithograph. What do you notice first? What do you notice after looking for a full minute?
Read the written description. What does it tell you about Trouvelot’s scientific and artistic processes? Are any of the words unfamiliar to you? If so, look them up to find out what they mean.
Trouvelot identifies specific details about the comet in his written description. Zoom in on the chromolithograph and try to match the written details with what you see in the image. How do these details change the way you think about this artwork?
Chromolithography
These prints are chromolithographs. To create chromolithographs, printers draw the image into several large, flat stones. Each color is printed on a separate stone, and paper is pressed to each stone, one at a time, until all the colors are on the paper.
CHROMO color • LITHO stone • GRAPH to write
Chromolithography reached the height of its popularity in the 1880s, exactly when Trouvelot published this set of prints. The sophisticated palette, created by mixing colors, shows the wide capabilities of lithography. Trouvelot created his original works in pastels. Then he chose 15 plates, which he considered his best, to be printed as chromolithographs and included in this set. He made sure colors and details would be accurate in the reproductions, and he supervised the preparation of the stones used in the chromolithographs.
Chromolithographs did not always create perfect representations. Errors could occur when converting drawings to lithographs. In Trouvelot’s Jupiter image, two moons, white orbs in Jupiter’s left side, and their shadows and the larger black orbs toward the center of the planet, are shown double their actual size. This error happened when Trouvelot’s original drawings were enlarged to the dimensions of the plate.
Radiant Beauty
Use the questions and prompts below to guide your analysis of one (or more) of Trouvelot’s chromolithographs and Trouvelot’s scientific and artistic processes.
Choose one of the above chromolithographs to observe. Allow the prompts and questions below to guide your observation. Once you’re done, you can choose a second chromolithograph and repeat the process. Compare your responses for the two chromolithographs. You can also compare your responses to those of a peer.
Questions & Prompts
Look closely at this chromolithograph. What do you notice first? What do you notice after looking for a full minute?
What questions do you think Trouvelot had about the natural world before creating this work?
What do you think he learned by creating this work? What questions do you think Trouvelot had about the natural world after creating this work?
How did Trouvelot use observations of the natural world when creating this work?
How do you think Trouvelot used his imagination and creativity when creating this work?
Does this work remind you of anything? What? Why?
What do you think Trouvelot was trying to communicate? What do you see in the object that makes you think that?
Write a scientific description based on the chromolithograph.
Read Trouvelot’s written description of the chromolithograph to enhance your analysis of the artwork. (Note: to get to the written descriptions, search “Key to the plates” on the page and navigate to the second result).
How did Trouvelot experiment scientifically? How did Trouvelot experiment artistically?
References and Resources
Note: Some of these materials use an outdated common name for the spongy moth. “The Entomological Society of America removed [gypsy moth] from its list of common names in July 2021 due to “gypsy” being a widely acknowledged ethnic slur and the dehumanizing effects of the common name.” Spongy Moth Transition Toolkit.Corbin, Brenda. 2007. “Etienne Leopold Trouvelot (1827-1895), the Artist and Astronomer.” Library and Information Services in Astronomy V: Common Challenges, Uncommon Solutions 377: 352. Accessed May 3, 2022. https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2007ASPC..377..352C.
Goss, Heather Goss. 2018. “A New Exhibition of Rarely Seen Astronomical Lithographs.” Air & Space Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/astronomical-lithographs-180968422/.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. 2018. “Radiant Beauty: E. L. Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings.” https://www.huntington.org/radiant-beauty.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. 2018. “Radiant Beauty: E. L. Trouvelot’s Astronomical Drawings.” YouTube Video, April 25, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB7nCeAwhYg.
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. 2022. “Lymantria dispar dispar (Spongy moth).” https://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/disturbance/invasive_species/gm/.
