#vintage dinosaur art

[atomic-chronoscaph]

The How and Why Wonder Book of Dinosaurs - art by Kenyon Shannon (1960)

[dinosaurnews]

Original thread here.

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

dinosaur model kits by Shigeru Komatsuzaki

[quatermasspitt]

'Jurassic plesiosaurians' by Alice B. Woodward, from Evolution in the past by Henry R. Knipe, 1912

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/21155471#page/157/mode/1up

[laurenillustrated]

🦖 Dinosaurs and vintage girls 🎀

Two things you wouldn’t think go together… but in my world they do 🤭 a small series of illustrations I did for fun! All of these are in my print shop if you’d like to have a little dino for yourself lol

[gameraboy2]

The People That Time Forgot (1977), poster artwork by George Akimoto

[wackestone]

Some illustrations from the Let's Collect Rocks Brochure by Shell Oil Company. Artist unknown.

(Scans are by me)

[alphynix]

Crystal Palace Field Trip Part 1: Walking With Victorian Monsters

The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs take their name from the original Crystal Palace, a glass-paned exhibition building originally constructed for a World's Fair in Hyde Park in 1851.

In 1854 the structure was relocated 14km (~9 miles) south to the newly-created Crystal Palace Park, and a collection of over 30 life-sized statues of prehistoric animals were commissioned to accompany the reopening – creating a sort of Victorian dinosaur theme park – sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins with consultation from paleontologist Sir Richard Owen.

The Palace building itself burned down completely in 1936, and today only the ruins of its terraces remain in the northeast of the park grounds.

The Crystal Palace building then and now Left image circa 1854 (public domain) Right image circa 2011 by Mark Ahsmann (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Six sphinx statues based on the Great Sphinx of Tanis also survive up among the Palace ruins, flanking some of the terrace staircases. They fell into serious disrepair during the latter half of the 20th century, but in 2017 they all finally got some much-needed preservation work, repairing them and restoring their original Victorian red paint jobs.

———

…But let's get to what we're really here for. Dinosaurs! (…And assorted other prehistoric beasties!)

The "Dinosaur Court" down in the south end of the park still remains to this day, displayed across several islands in a man-made lake. Over the decades they've been through multiple cycles of neglect and renovation, and are currently cared for by the London Borough of Bromley (Crystal Palace Park Trust are due to take over custodial duties in September 2023), with promotion and fundraising assistance from organizations like Historic England and the Friends of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs charity.

Just about 170 years old now, the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs represent fifteen different types of fossil creatures known to 1850s Victorian science, with only three actual dinosaur species featured. Although often derided for being outdated and very inaccurate by modern standards, they were actually incredibly good efforts at the time, especially taking into account that the field of paleontology was still in its very early days.

They also just have a lot of charm, with toothy grins and surprisingly dynamic poses.

Unfortunately on the day I visited in early August 2023 most of the statues were heavily obscured by plant growth, both on their islands and on the sides of the paths they can usually be viewed from. Since I'd seen images from about a month ago showing things being less overgrown, this was probably just some unlucky timing on my part coinciding with some explosive summer foliage growth.

The first island on the trail features a few Permian and Triassic animals which were only known from fragmentary remains in the 1850s. These "labyrinthodonts" were recognized as having similarities to both amphibians and reptiles, and so were depicted with boxy toothy jaws, warty skin, stumpy tails, and long frog-like back legs.

Today we'd call these particular animals temnospondyl amphibians, specifically Mastodonsaurus, and we know they were actually shaped more like giant salamanders with longer flatter crocodilian-like jaws, smaller legs, and long paddle-like tails.

———

Somewhere in the foliage beyond this specific "labyrinthodont" there was also supposed to be a pair of dicynodonts, but I couldn't see much of them at all and didn't manage to get a remotely visible photograph.

Crystal Palace Dicynodon when much less overgrown Left photo by London looks (CC BY 2.0) Right photo by Loz Pycock (CC BY SA 2.0)

These Dicynodon are depicted as looking like sabre-toothed turtles complete with shells. That was fairly speculative even for the time, but considering only their weird turtle-beaked-and-walrus-tusked skulls were known it was probably the best guess Hawkins and Owen had. Today we know these animals were actually synapsids related to modern mammals, but Victorian understanding considered them to be a type of reptile.

Modern reconstructions of dicynodonts have a slightly different face shape, along with squat pig-like bodies and semi-sprawling limbs. They may have had fur, but currently the only known actual skin impressions from the genus Lystrosaurus show leathery bumpy hairless skin.

———

Next time: the Jurassic and Cretaceous sculptures!

[neptunefairytales]

Bears (and other animals behind) skeletons at the Gallery of anatomy and Paleontology in Paris.

(Personnal pic, please reblog, do not use or repost. Thanks! NSFW Accounts Do Not INTERACT!)

[gooberscollage]

Various Scraps from My Collection

[avernine]

chookum doodle!

[ornithologyorthodoxy]

11/10/23

[dinosaurnews]

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

vintage dinosaur art exhibits from the 40s by William D. Berry

[doodlesdreaming]

Attempted some screenshot redraws with one of my favorite childhood movies.

Does anyone know said movie? ^^

[laurenillustrated]

Some more vintage girls with dinosaur friends!