The French artist, astronomer and amateur entomologist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot (1827-1895) left his native France in 1855, moving with his wife to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his two children were born. He supported his family as an artist and nature illustrator, also working as a lithographer. He soon became active with the local scientific community as a member of the Boston Society of Natural History. His interest in astronomical phenomena solidified after he witnessed and drew several spectacular auroras in the late 1870s.
Above: Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, The planet Saturn: Observed on November 30, 1874, at 5h. 30m. P.M

Around that time Trouvelot was invited onto the staff of the Harvard College Observatory by the director, Joseph Winlock, who was impressed with the quality of his drawings. Using the Observatory’s 15-inch refractor telescope, Trouvelot made hundreds of drawings of celestial objects, including total eclipses of the sun. In 1875 he was invited to use the U. S. Naval Observatory’s 26-inch refractor, the largest in the world at the time.  The following year, a selection of Trouvelot’s pastels was exhibited alongside Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, Heinz ketchup, and the right arm of the Statue of Liberty at the Centennial International exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. Above: Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, Mare Humorum: From a study made in 1875

Astrophotography during Trouvelot’s time was very much in its infancy. Confident in his own creative abilities, he dismissed photography as “so blurred and indistinct that no details of any great value can be secured.” His drawings were always intended as scientific studies of physical marvels rather than art for sale. But these strange, alluring visuals remain artistically significant due to their overwhelming grace and extraordinary wonder. Today we are familiar with striking images of space and the cosmos. Awesome as they may be, NASAs images, made with a specially created camera by Hasselblad, somehow lack the elegance that make Trouvelot’s pastel studies so appealing. Above: Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, Total eclipse of the sun: Observed July 29, 1878, at Creston, Wyoming Territory

It is estimated that he created more than 7,000 astronomical drawings, 15 of which were published as color chromolithographs by Charles Scribner’s & Sons as The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings, in 1882 [above]. Trouvelot wrote in the Introduction, “While my aim in this work has been to combine scrupulous fidelity and accuracy in the details, I have also endeavored to preserve the natural elegance and the delicate outlines peculiar to the objects depicted; but in this, only a little more than a suggestion is possible, since no human skill can reproduce upon paper the majestic beauty and radiance of the celestial objects.”

Scribner’s sold the portfolio in an edition of approximately 300 copies for $125, a large sum in at the time. Today, complete sets, few and far between, go for astronomical prices, with the most recent sale at auction going for close to $50,000. 

A catalog description reads: Comprising 15 chromolithographed plates after the artist's original pastel drawings, printed and published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1881 under the supervision of the artist. The plates are titled and numbered as follows: I. Group of Sun Spots, II. Solar Protuberances, III. Total Eclipse of the Sun, IV. Aurora Borealis, V. The Zodiacal Light, VI. Mare Humorum, VII. Partial Eclipse of the Moon, VIII. The Planet Mars, IX. The Planet Jupiter, X. The Planet Saturn, XI. The Great Comet of 1881, XII. The November Meteors, XIII. Part of the Milky Way, XIV. Star Cluster in Hercules, XV. The Great Nebula in Orion. Each plate notes date and time of observance or date of original sketch. 

Currently in the public domain, Trouvelot’s drawings are offered by The New York Public Library for free, unrestricted use, including a hi-res tiff suitable for printing. Info