Mare Humorum
Mare Humorum
Artist
Étienne Léopold Trouvelot
(French, 1827 - 1895)
Lithographer
Armstrong & Company
Date1881-1882
MediumChromolithograph
Dimensionssheet: 27 1/2 × 37 1/4 in. (69.9 × 94.6 cm)
plate: 21 × 27 7/8 in. (53.3 × 70.8 cm)
plate: 21 × 27 7/8 in. (53.3 × 70.8 cm)
ClassificationsPrint
Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2006.48.6
Accession number
2006.48.6
On View
Not on viewLabel TextTrouvelot's fascination with the cosmos inspired many drawings during his time at the Harvard College Observatory. The telescope at Harvard—known as the Great Refractor, as it measured over 20 feet in length and employed a 15-inch-diameter lens—was then among the finest in the world, allowing the artist-astronomer to examine the surface of the moon in unprecedented detail. Due to its topographical similarity to dry sea beds on Earth, this large impact basin was named Mare Humorum meaning –“sea of moisture” in Latin. Through precise control of color, Trouvelot expresses the organic yet alien landscape only visible through the magnification of the telescope.
