Prehistoric Monsters at the Crystal Palace


The following 2 artworks aren't from the Crystal Palace but I wanted to show them anyway.

"When the Palace transferred to Penge in 1854, Joseph Paxton was determined to make it an unrivalled attraction.

As part of this plan "dinosaur islands" were created in the park lakes upon which huge models of the long extinct creatures were constructed, many only recently discovered and of great topical interest.

Sculptured by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, models of extinct mammals as well as dinosaurs were included." - quote source.

This page has a fantastic array of artwork related to the dinosaurs from the Crystal palace.
There's a great collection of articles concerning the early discoveries of dinosaur species here. The first chapater discusses the Crystal Castle dinosaurs here and here.
To see a photos of the actual dinosaur sculptures, click here.
Read more about this attraction here.

And here is one more illustration of prehistoric monsters by one of my favorite artists, John Martin. This is a mezzotint with the description, "A nocturnal scene with saurians and sea-creatures fighting each other in the water."

A Variety Of Demons
"a man conducting magic rites, devils and a ghost appearing, and a hunter cowering in terror." Coloured engraving from the 18th century, artist unknown.


The Devil and Dr. Faustus meet - "The life and horrible adventures of the celebrated Dr. Faustus; relating his first introduction to Lucifer, and connection with infernal spirits; his method of raising the Devil, and his final dismissal to the tremendous abyss of Hell." dated 1825, artist unknown.

Richard Tennant Cooper - "An unconscious naked man lying on a table being attacked by little demons armed with surgical instruments; symbolising the effects of chloroform on the human body. Watercolour"


Paul-Franz Namur after: L. Lambert - "A man riding a horse in a graveyard, surrounded and attacked by dead souls, demons and by death holding a scythe. " Etching from 1901.






















"Balthasar Bekker and another man (Christian Thomasius?) sieve diseases from devils." Engraving from 1695.






















Master François - From "The Mirror history of Vincent of Beauvais. Volume III" and described as "Hellish vision of a child named Guillaume." Miniature painting from the 15th century.


Engraving, artist unknown.

Lambert's "Book of Flowers"









You're probably wondering like I was just what in the hell paintings like these have to do with flowers. Well the following quote should clear that up.

"an encyclopedia of Biblical, chronological, astronomical, geographical, theological, philosophical and natural history subjects. It is an extract or synopsis from different authors, and was begun in 1090 and finished in 1120. Written originally in Latin, it was later translated into French as Le Livre fleurissant en fleurs. Lambert saw the compilation as a bouquet of flowers plucked from the heavenly meadow "that the faithful bees may fly together to them and drink from them the sweetness of the heavenly potion." At least nine manuscript copies, dating from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, are known to exist. All were produced in northern France or Flanders." quote source.

"The Liber floridus (c. 1120) of Lambert of Saint-Omer is an unoriginal miscellany, but it has an interest of its own in that it discards practical matters in favour of metaphysical discussion and pays special attention to such subjects as magic and astrology." - quote source.

All of these paintings are dated from the 15th century, long after the book was originally created. I'm unaware of the artist responsible for these incredible illustrations for the book other than they were probably from Flanders.

Click the numbers to see more miniature paintings from this book.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 More can be viewed here.

The Mirror Of Human Salvation










These miniature paintings taken from the illuminated manuscript "The Mirror Of Human Salvation" is one of many interpretations of this book made over the centuries. Click here to view the rest from this collection. There is an excellent article on this book at BibliOdyssey where other versions are mentioned.

Another version of this book can be found here.

Jean Gearson - Le Trésor de Sapience












More miniature paintings from this collection can be found here.

Cornelis van Poelenburgh





















This oil painting is titled "Orphée and Eurydice In Hell" from the 17th century. A smaller but higher contrast version of this painting can be seen here. A short bio on the artist can be found here.

Dirk Bouts - The Fall Of The Damned




I thought that I'd posted this here awhile back but apparently not. This is one of my favorite paintings. If you look at the faces on some of the monkey like demons you'll see them staring back, briefly pausing the torment to hold a good pose for whoever might be watching. The oil on wood painting is titled "The Fall of the Damned" and is dated from 1450. You can read a small blurb about the artist here.

The following print by Peter Brueghel the Elder titled "The Damned" is a loose copy of the above painting.

Jacob Isaacsz van Swanenburgh - Hell
I stumbled across another painting by Swanenburgh dated at 1620. Image found here.
Click here to see more art by Isaacsz.

Cristoforo de Predis - The Predis Codex




"Cristoforo de Predis was a deaf early Renaissance illuminator and miniaturist in Milan, Italy. The surname sometimes appears as da Predis or di Predis. His better-known hearing half-brother, Ambrogio de Predis, also a painter, worked with Leonardo da Vinci and reportedly taught Leonardo some of his deaf brother's signs to help make Leonardo's paintings more expressive. Some sources erroneously label Cristoforo as Ambrogio's father, but they were in fact half-brothers. The Predis Codex is a bound collection of Cristoforo's miniature paintings of scenes from the Bible." - quote from here.

The above illuminated miniature paintings are dated from the 15th century. For further details on these paintings and to see more from the series, click here.

Images found thanks to Paul Rumsey.

Punishments In Hell




The above 2 undated images are Chromolithographs showing what happens to people for various sin related crimes. The top image shows both the sin and the punishment, a nice guide to have around so you're not surprised when a giant monster headed thing throws you in a fire. They were published by Anant Shivaji Desai Motibazar Mumbai in Bombay India. I was hoping to find larger examples of these but all that I could find online was this mention from an exhibition concerning pain. And I remember seeing posters very similar to these somewhere in Chicago that showed other crimes that you were supposed to avoid. If anyone knows of any sites with additional posters like these please mention them in the comments.

Follower Of Bosch
"Flemish, second half 16th century Christ in Limbo, oil on wood"

I've spent a great deal of time staring at this painting in the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It's really amazing to be able to explore the individual paint marks in this weird hellish fantasy world up close. There is an original Hieronymus Bosch painting (Ecce Homo) a few rooms down from this work.

This painting is attributed to Bosch but I don't believe it's his work. But perhaps it is based on a lost Bosch Painting?