A Fabulist, Proto-Surreal Comet, 1844

JF Ptak Science Books, Quick Post

The heavens look orderly and generated in this depiction of space-based entertainment. Created by the the fabulist proto-surrealist (etc.) J.J. Grandville in his book Un Autre Monde (“Another World”) in 1844, the "travels of a comet" is a creative interpretation of the functions of a comet, the celestial body anthropomorphized, with a series of stars holding its gown's train, perhaps anchored by the Sun (or not).  Beneath the comet is a A Saturn-like conveyance (see here), and to the right of that a star with the initials of the artist ("I.I.G.").  Various other arrangements of planets are held in order by a series of stars, connected with some sort of nebulous something--the decorative centerpiece of this allegory bears a strong upside-down resemblance to the design on the title page holding the book's title.

The image appears in the book just after the illustration of the "conjugal kiss" of a lunar eclipse, a phrase even in English with a little ring to it. 

[Source:  Hathi Trust, full text, here: http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=gri.ark:/13960/t04x89022;view=1up;seq=125]

This also puts me in mind of Mozart's Zauberflaute--not really by much, and not by much that is very concrete, but the mood certainly reminds me of it:

[Image: Stage set for Mozart's Magic Flute, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1815, gouache, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. via Wikimedia Commons and the University of Georgia, http://www.franklin.uga.edu/chronicles/posts/uga-opera-theatre-presents-mozarts-magic-flute]