After James Nasmyth
Moon’s Copernicus Crater (painting)
London, 1851 (-ca. 1890)
Black and white glass lantern slide, 240x180 mm, credit, in a wooden frame for Magic Lantern
James Nasmyth started observing the moon in the 1840s, while running a revolutionary engineering business in Manchester. He tried to use the most up-to-date lunar map published by German astronomers but found the two-dimensional line drawing did not equate easily with the three-dimensional surface he observed. He therefore produced a series of sketches and paintings, from hundreds of observations, focusing on the light and shadow created by the moon’s pitted surface.
