Wednesday, October 23, 2019

SearchResearch Challenge (10/23/19): Where is this lobster image from? What's the story behind it?


I sometimes find things... 

... in my files that are funny and odd... and I have no clue about what they are, how they got there, or what the backstory is.  

After last week's epic SearchResearch Challenge, I was cleaning up my files. (Yes, I admit it.  I tend to drop files all over my desktop in a huge disorganized pile, and then clean things up afterwards.)  

In the cleanup process, I found this cute little lobster image: 


Obviously, this isn't a lobster I know about and it has nothing to do  with the contour lines from last week, so it must have appeared at some point in the past.  This looks to be some kind of older document.  

I've got lots of lobster photos from dive trips I've taken (here's an example).  


But where did that first lobster  image come from?  

1.  Where is this lobster image from? 

2.  What's the backstory of the source?  (IIRC, it has a kind of crazy story.  But I don't remember what it is!) 

Can you enlighten me about this lobster image and the tale of the source that goes with it? 

As always, let us know how you found the answer!  

Search on!  

(After last week's Challenge I pre-tested this.  I was able to find the answer in less than 5 minutes, although the backstory really is crazy!) 


20 comments:

  1. On one of the recent challenges (or is it on Dan Russell's book?), I found out about Yandex reverse image search. I investigated a little about it and in the past few weeks have been using a Chrome app I subsequently installed and I love: Armin Sebastian's app unimaginatively named Search by Image. So now I have been searching images on several reverse engines at once (and Yandex is indeed among the best).

    That's what I did for this picture, and Yandex was, once again, on the mouche. Its second result on "Similar images" is just what we're looking for, a very descriptive page about this engraving, as a lot on an auction in a specialized house in UK dealing with antique maps, old prints, and medieval manuscripts. The auction and gallery house is Paulus Swaen (by Pierre Joppen).

    Here's the page: https://www.swaen.com/item.php?id=19149. Just follow the link and you'll find all about this lobster, including the backstory (which is crazy indeed).

    If this is the answer, it's probably the fastest challenge I answered here (thanks to Yandex and Search by Image; and ultimately to Dan Russell).

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  2. This was one of your easier ones - it took no more than 1 minute.

    I did a quick search on Bing Images - which wasn't much good. I then switched to Yandex Images and Google Images. Yandex gave the following: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq0wG_W1yCmZh4FsBjlk1gpQQ25qOQ - the first two images are the same but the second one looks more likely (especially as it has the odd lines on the bottom left). Google was mostly stock photos or sites for buying old prints so not much use. Yandex gave this: https://www.swaen.com/item.php?id=19149 which gives the following back-story.

    "Decorative engraving of a lobster, by Tresca. Marie Jules César Lelorgne de Savigny (April 5, 1777 - October 5, 1851) was a French zoologist. In 1798 he traveled to Egypt with the Emperor Napoleon as part of the French scientific expedition to that country, and contributed to the publication of the findings of the expedition in 1809 (Description de l'Égypte published more fully in 1822). He wrote about the fauna in the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and discovered that mouth parts of arthropods were transformed extremities.
    Engraved y Marcet and Leleu.
    Savigny was responsible, along with Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, for the zoology sections of the Description de l’Égypte. The plates were engraved between 1805 and 1814, and Savigny contributed all of the ornithology sections and supplemented other sections on vertebrates. The invertebrates are represented on 105 plates with thousands of drawings, all of them from Savigny’s research."


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  4. For this Challenge, tried 2 different ways.

    In the first searched by image with my mobile. Results gave images and a name: Lobster illustrated by Edme François Jomard for Description de l'Égypte Histoire Naturelle

    Then, downloaded the image, upload again on Google Photos and searched with Google Lens:

    Description de l'Égypte

    And also vintage illustrations like searching on mobile

    Searched [ Edme François Jomard for Description de l'Égypte Histoire Naturelle] and translated lobster to French: Homard adding it to the query

    Jomard, Edme François

    French: Jomard and the Description of Egypt

    Also found this, yet haven't found the lobster

    DESCRIPTION DE L'EGYPTE

    Still need to find images and also the name of the "lobster"

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    Replies
    1. After reading the posts made by other SRS, searched

      [lobster Savigny]

      Spiny lobster, Zoology plate (Crustaceans) A bigger much clear image of the lobster.

      ["Description de l'Egypte" Jules Cesar Savigny]

      Wikipedia
      Described dozens of plants. Member of the Academy of Science. He is also known for proposing a theory that the mouth-parts of insects are homologous with locomotory organs.Eyesight deteriorated. Many animal species with his name and after reading English, French and Spanish version, also found: The abbreviation Savigny is used to indicate Marie Jules César Lelorgne de Savigny as the authority in classification of vegetables and also in taxonomy in zoology.

      [Marie Jules César Lelorgne de Savigny] and [Marie Jules César Lelorgne de Savigny unknown facts]

      is a French naturalist .

      He was mentioned on the Darwin Correspondence Project

      To J. S. Henslow1 24 July – 7 November 1834 : Lobularia alcyonium

      Ospreys live on every continent except Antarctica. They are unique, the only members of their scientific genus, Pandion. The French naturalist, Marie Jules César Lelorgne de Savigny, decided on this name – from mythology – a King of Athens. Haliaetus is the species name, meaning “a sea eagle.”

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    2. Out of topic and interesting. What this could be? Reflex, Red Sprite, gas? Official sources says it is nothing related with Izta awakening. Iztaccihuatl is next to Popocatépetl and last eruption was in 1800's

      Images Closeup

      Other videos events

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    3. Hi Remmij! Thanks for the links. Climbing link's photos are awesome and I just read another camera "saw" the event on the Izta. So, the "it was nothing" theory failed. Also was searching for maybe other photos and found:

      Copernicus photo from February 2, 2019 I didn't know about Tlaloc volcano or I forgot about it. Therefore, I did SRS with [Tlaloc Volcan] and other similar and found that there are Volcano and Mount:

      The Mount

      The Volcano

      Also found about the Ghost Mountain that "appears" only on February and that Mexico City has 8 volcanoes. Other note says there are only 5

      8 Volcanoes

      The Ghost Mountain

      Video 1 Ghost Mountain. In Spanish 5 minutes

      Video 2 Ghost Mountain. In Spanish 12 minutes by another author. The event happens after the 9 minute Plus the Archaeological zone built in the highest part of the world.

      Not volcano and beautiful: The rainforest under a different light

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  5. With Google Lens in Google Photos and Wikipedia and Musée du Louvre website I've got two names as creators of the source :
    - Salvatore Tresca
    - Jule Cesar Savigny
    I've sent a mail to the Louvre ... 😁

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  6. Google Lens/Wikipedia/Musée du Louvre

    I've got two names as creators of the source :
    - Salvatore Tresca
    https://fr.muzeo.com/reproduction-oeuvre/description-de-legypte-zoologie-crustace-homard/salvatore-tresca
    - Jule Cesar Savigny
    https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Description_de_l%27%C3%89gypte
    Volume 2
    Une planche Zoologie, animaux invertébrés, céphalopodes par Jules-César Savigny
    Trois planches Zoologie, animaux invertébrés, gastéropodes par Jules-César Savigny
    14 planches Zoologie, animaux invertébrés, coquilles par Jules-César Savigny
    Cinq planches Zoologie, animaux invertébrés, annélides par Jules-César Savigny
    13 planches Zoologie, animaux invertébrés, crustacés par Jules-César Savigny

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    1. I believe Savigny was drawing himself the rough sketches, and supervising the final drawings and engravings. On the plate itself, it can be read "par J.-Cés. Savigny." ("par" is French for "by"), and "Tresca sc.ᵗ" ("sc.ᵗ" is the abbreviation of the Latin "sculpit", meaning "engraved").

      Several webpages have other engravings with the description "engraving by Tresca after a drawing by Savigny".

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  7. The lobster image is readily found in Images. This led to rawpixel an online supplier of images. It has this to say about your critter:

    Lobster illustrated by Edme François Jomard for Description de l'Égypte Histoire Naturelle (1809-1828).

    This title punched into Search finds: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b2300300m/f32.item and in the book a nice plate entitled

    Crustaceans pl. 8: Lobsters / Tresca sculp., Huet pinxt. [Call number: 15297, A]

    [homard lobster back story] finds this https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xy7vzw/lobsters-delicious-history-is-completely-insane

    Ha, they were known a few years ago as the cockroaches of the sea good for bass bait and prisoners

    Delicious Challenge jon

    Search of your blog found nothing useful here even with CRTL F

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  8. Anne and Deb here. We started by doing a reverse image search in google images. This led us to several stock photo image sites. We thought we might have gotten some helpful information when we found this result https://ateliersartmuseesnationaux.fr/en/engraving /KM005213 saying it was an engraving by Salvatore Tresca. Tried to find more info on Tresca and came up with no more info. Even tried Wikipedia in Italian no luck! Also found this result- https://www.mpl.org/blog/now/treasures-of-the-rare-books-room-description-de-l-egypte Found the same image in this person's review of their visit to the Milwaukee Public Library. Looked for more information on the book in google books and didn't find it. Next we went back to our original search and found lots of wallpaper which looked very similar called "Jack the Crustacean" Thought there might be a back story but all efforts to find more info on this wallpaper design came up with nothing. We even tried jack the lobster as a search. Went back to our original search and found a result from the Getty Museum- https://www.gettyimages.ca/photos/the-armee?page=20&sort=mostpopular&phrase=the%20armee When we got to the site we did a search for Egypt lobster and found the image with this description- Spiny lobster, Zoology plate
    Spiny lobster, Zoology plate (Crustaceans) by Marie Jules Cesar Savigny, engraving by Tresca after a drawing by Savigny, from Description de l'Egypte, ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont ete faites en Egypte pendant l'expedition de l'armee francaise (Description of Egypt, or the collection of observations and researches which were made in Egypt during the expedition of the French Army), Histoire naturelle, Planches, Volume II, Plate 8, Imprimerie Imperiale, 1817, Paris.It did confirm that the engraver was Tresca. We would have ended our search here but after reading other answers we decided to try yandex but that site was blocked at school so had to wait until I got home to try it. Uploaded image and got same result others did. So for us this was not quite so simple and easy but now I know if I ever get a beach house I can decorate with jack the crustacean wallpaper!

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