A Boat That Has for Sails the Wings of a Huge Bird
1769
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1769
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
You see a small sailboat floating in the sky, its sails replaced by the outstretched wings of a giant bird. This isn’t a real place—it’s from a series of prints imagining life on the moon. People in the 1700s loved stories about strange worlds, and this artist drew them with weird humor: giant scissors hunting rats, pumpkins as boats. The boat here looks almost normal, until you notice the bird doing all the work. If you like this kind of playful fantasy, look up *subject: italy*—other artists there dreamed up wild inventions too.
