Title and Dedication Page
1769
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
1769
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Title and Dedication Page is a 1769 by Filippo Morghen, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a fancy title page with swirling clouds, a crescent moon, and tiny figures riding giant birds. This is the first sheet of a ten-print story about a trip to the moon. The artist imagined moon people using pumpkins as boats and scissors big enough to catch wild rats. It’s like a science-fiction comic from 1769—no rockets, just weird inventions. If you like this kind of old-school sci-fi art, look up the subject of Italy for more strange travel tales.
Filippo Morghen’s set of 10 etchings is outstanding among visual narratives of imaginary voyages to the moon, both visual and literary, that intrigued 18th-century European audiences. A title page and nine plates depict the imagined lives and economy of moon dwellers. These include modes of transport such as large birds and sailboats propelled by giant bellows, enormous scissors for capturing wild beasts (including an oversized rat), and the use of giant pumpkins as fishing boats and as dwellings. Representations of the moon dwellers are based on inaccurate and imaginary European…
Morghen based this print series on three books dedicated to moon exploration, including Bishop Francis Godwin’s Man in the Moone of 1640.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Filippo Morghen (1730–1807) was an Italian artist, born in Florence.
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