Remigio Cantagallina / Giulio Parigi

"A Musical Boat in the Arno, with Sea Gods and Tritons, for the wedding festivites of the Duke of Tuscany, circa 1608."


"From the series Ships of the Argonauts, a mock naval battle on the Arno on 3 November 1608 designed by Giulio Parigi to celebrate the wedding of Cosimo II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Marie Madelaine of Austria, 1608."


"The Ship of the Argonauts Idmone and Mopso, Guided by Apollo, for the wedding festivites of the Duke of Tuscany, circa 1608."

quotes and imagery found here.

Jacques Callot - The Combat At The Barrier

Here's a selection of etching and engravings by Callot which display incredible conceptual works for the Baroque Thearical Performance of "Le Combat a la Barriere."

"part of a set made to record an extravagant spectacle held by the Duke of Lorraine at his court in Nancy. The performance opened with the entry of the participants on elaborate floats. This was followed by a jousting tournament, carefully staged to assure the duke's victory.

Callot's prints, together with a description of the spectacle and a transcription of its dialogue, made up a festival book that documented the events. This book was widely collected by the courts of Europe, and had considerable influence on stage design." quote from here.

The Bunyip
"This is a fierce creature from Australia. Amphibious by nature, it has the appearance of a giant seal or even a hippopotamus, It is greatly feared, for it enjoys the taste of human flesh, particularly the more tender flesh of women and children." quote from here.

The above black and white watercolor painting of one of these beasts is from 1935, artist unknown.

Additional links concerning the creature can be found here here and here.

And an illustration of a Bunyip or an oversized dog ruining the chest cavity of a swimmer.

The Outlandish Art Of Mahlon Blaine
"Mahlon Blaine was born in California in 1894. He served in World War I and Legman says that he had a metal plate in his head and shrapnel wounds on his wrist from injuries he suffered. He only had one eye the result of an accident "at an early age while chopping wood for his father." quote taken from the online biography of Blaine here.

Click the links below to see additional art..
A Fighting Man Of Mars
The Moon Men
Land That Time Forgot
The Monster Men
Tanar Of Pellucidar
Another page dedicated to the works of Blaine can be found here.

Artist found thanks to my friend, Robert Adam Gilmour.

Witches In Woodcuts










All that I can tell you is most of these prints were taken from a book titled "The history of witches and wizards" and date within the 17th century. Don't miss the great selection of works at the commons page at Wikipedia. I'm a huge fan of this particular image. And one more strange witch infested woodcut.

Goblins
I stumbled across this drawing of an army of peculiar characters here.

Dulle Griet (Mad Meg)
"Griet was a disapproving name given to any bad-tempered, shrewish woman, about which there are many Flemish proverbs: ‘She could plunder in front of hell and return unscathed’." - quote from here.

The above painting of the maniac woman battling the denizens of Hell is titled "The Witch" by David Rychaert the 3rd from the 17th century.

In this painting of Mad Meg by David Teniers the Younger from the 1640's, we see the crazy lady entering a Hell populated by the Greek mythos beast of the underworld, Cerebus.

The most famous of the bunch, Peter Brughel's "Dulle Griet" or Mad Meg, from 1562.

The above incredibly detailed interpretation of Bruegel's painting is by an artist who goes by none other than Mad Meg.

This derranged crowd of characters is a fragment from a larger work by the illustrator Carll Cneut. The illustration is taken from his book titled Dulle Griet.

Conrad Gesner - Historiæ Animalium

This gallery contains all 416 pages from a giant collection of underwater lifeforms. Mixed in with the intricately detailed illustrations of fish and crabs are the odd creatures of legend and imagination. Click the links below to see some of the stranger illustrations.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15

You'll notice many of the same illustrations shown below colorized in these books.

Topsell's "The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents"
Here is another collection of real life animal illustrations mixed with creatures of the imagination. Below is a selection of some of the stranger and fantastic beasts from the collection...

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14

And one of the oddest illustrations I've ever seen of a crocodile.

Both links found thanks to BibliOdyssey.

Giovanni da Udine - 7 Headed Monster





















Here is an incredible drawing made in pen and ink wash on paper from the 16th century. And below is a watercolor/ pen and ink drawing of yet another intepretation of the Temptation of Saint Anthony by Jan Thomas Van Kessel, dated between the 17th and 18th century.

Marcus Behmer










































The top image was found here. The rest are etching illustrations for "Vom Morgenlandischen" or what I think is "Aladdin's Dragons" translated from the German text. Some sort of weird board game.

Click the numbers below to view more of the fantastic works by Marcus Behmer..

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10

Additional works can be viewed here.

Richard Doyle

"Moonlit landscape, with an apparition of a woman and a host of winged monsters" - image found here.


"A Flight by Night of Bats and Elves" - image found
"Queer Folk" - image found here.

More works by Doyle, most of which fall under the surreal fairy tale kind, can be found here and here. Check out this peculiar image of two characters jousting on top of bugs.
Learn more about this Victorian era illustrator here.

And I stumbled across this image below by the artist Jean Bérain in my hunt for Doyle artworks, a stage design for Hell.

Matti Hagelberg


The Sinful Ways of Simpli City
Some comics in English
Article at Lambiek
Print at Le Dernier Cri