Looking for a 19th century painting of the ocean floor

December 18, 2015 9:26 PM

While deep in a Google image search for new wall decor, I came across a painting of the sea floor that I can't find again. Details I remember: 19th century, western, realistic in style, landscape orientation, red coral (?) or sea fan-type thingy in the foreground.

Does anyone have any ideas? It wasn't a botanical illustration like Ernst Haeckel. No mermaids or anything fantastic. I seem to remember a Wikipedia or Wikimedia result for the artist or painting, so he's not totally obscure or unknown. Thank you!

posted by fozzie_bear to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Hmmm. . . could it have been one of William Dickes's illustrations for Glaucus, or Wonders of the Shore, like this one, this one, or this?
posted by barchan at 10:25 PM on December 18, 2015 [2 favorites]

One of Philip Henry Gosse’s illustrations for Actinologia Britannica, perhaps?
posted by misteraitch at 2:21 AM on December 19, 2015

Something by Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez? Undersea explorer and painter - the undersea image of his that's on Wikipedia isn't a painting, but he did also do paintings eg this one, and there's red corals in this.
posted by severalbees at 8:51 AM on December 19, 2015

I was so bummed when I opened your post and found "no mermaids or anything fantastic". I somehow wanted this to be a search for Ilya Repin's Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom.
posted by cleroy at 5:30 PM on December 19, 2015 [2 favorites]