The Country of the Iguanodon, 1838, by John Martin. Watercolour on paper, 12 x 17 ¾ inches. Te Papa Tongarew. The Museum of New Zealand. Click on image to enlarge it.
This watercolour was engraved and used as the frontispiece for Gideon Mantell’s book, The Wonders of Geology (1838). Martin visualizes a brutal past of battling monsters, drawn with characteristic fluidity and dynamism, that owes more to his imagination than to the facts of the fossil record; like all representations of early Victorian palaeontology, the imagery is Romantic rather than scientific.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit Te Papa, the Museum of New Zealand, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. Image capture by Simon Cooke
Created 23 August 2021