Some Very Early Jon Whitcomb Illustrations

Jon Whitcomb (1906–1988) was an illustrator best remembered for depictions of glamorous women.  I wrote about him here and here.  Some biogrphiacal information is here.

When writing those earlier posts, my Internet searches turned up nothing of his work prior to the Cadillac advertisements dealt with in the second link above.  I just did another quick search and noticed nothing done earlier that the very late 1930s.  What were his earlier efforts like?

Although I lack examples of Whitcomb illustrations from the first decade or so of his professional career, a reader of this blog, Frank Pauer, kindly provided me with some 1920s illustrations from the Ohio State University humor magazine.

Gallery

A typical Whitcomb illustration
Later in his career, he experimented with some of the styles trendy in the 1960s.

Himself, earning a few shekels promoting a cigarette brand
Fatima stressed its Turkish tobacco content.

Himself pictured in the Senior class segment of the 1928 Ohio State University yearbook
Delta Tau Delta (the "Delts") was his college fraternity.  Sun Dial was the college humor magazine. Delaware is a small city in Ohio.

March 1928 Sun Dial cover by Whitcomb

Cartoon from the same issue
Note Whitcomb's signature here is similar to the 1920s style of Ralph Barton and Russell Patterson. Compare to his signature in the top image above.  The cartoon style also is very 1920s.

Cartoon from the December 1927 issue
Sigma Nu is a college fraternity. "D.U." refers to another fraternity, Delta Upsilon.  This cartoon shows a touch of glamour that will be the basis for his later career.

More on Vadim Voitekhovitch's Steampunk World

Vadim Voitekhovitch (1963 - ), born in what is now Belarus, moved to Germany in 2004.  He mostly paints Steampunk scenes of apparently fictional Hanseatic area port cities.  Some Steampunk views are of actual inland German cities, but still set in the late 1800s or very early 1900s.  And he sometimes paints such places without Steampunk details.

I previously wrote about him here.

Today, I comment regarding which details of his pure Steampunk paintings are Steampunk, and which are true to the 19th century world used as his setting.  Also noted are a few of his Steampunk shape sources.

Gallery

Fleet at Sea
The steam-powered airships are pure Steampunk: engineering impossibilities.  The ships, however, are similar to 1890s French armored cruisers.

French Armored Cruiser Bruix
Voitekhovitch borrowed the prow and military masts of this vintage cruiser.

French Battleship Charles Martel
The "tumblehome" side profile is more from this vintage battleship that also has some impressive military (weaponized) masts.

Die Kreuzung der Wege - Intersection
Note the elevated railroad.  The locomotive is derived from mid-1800s Crampton types having huge driving wheels.  The omnibuses on the street are horse-drawn, not Steampunk like the airship.

Great Western Railroad's Iron Duke / Rover Class locomotive
Example of a Crampton type locomotive.

Leipzig Marktplatz
The main Leipzig marketplace as it appeared around 1900, but with the addition of an airship that's apparently not steam-powered.

Der Anlegeturm - The Mooring Tower
The cars appear to be 1915 vintage, but perhaps powered by liquid gas (note the copper tanks at the rear of the car at the right).

Eisener Falke - Iron Falcon
A steam-powered vehicle in the foreground plus the usual airships.

Die Weltlichen Neuheiten - Worldly Novelties
Probably not the best translation.  The tram and cart seem steam-powered, but there's also a horse-drawn carriage at the left.  As is usual in Voitekhovitch's paintings, all this including the airships is normal environment for the people depicted. 

Street scene with steam-powered bus
Everything else seems pure-1890.

Sculpture-Augmented Frescoes at Würzburg Residenz

Last summer (2023) I toured Würzburg's Residenz, the palace of the Prince-Bishop when the area was a unit of the Holy Roman Empire.  Its Wikipedia entry is here.

Its artistic highlights regarding painting are the huge ceiling frescos by the great
Giovani Battista Tiepolo.  The present post features the fresco in the Treppenhaus. This link notes:

"... in the great vaulted ceiling over the Treppenhaus - at 7287 square feet (677 square metres) one of the largest expanses ever to have been covered in fresco - the theme was "Allegory of the Planets and Continents."  This monumental mythological painting, which occasionally encroaches onto architectural elements below, extends over a flattened basket vault that spans a complex arrangement of flights and landings.  It shows the Four Continents beneath a central Heaven presided over by an art-loving Apollo."

It's that encroaching that concerns us today.

Some encroaching items are sculptures that overlap the painting in places, becoming part of it when viewed from below.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the name of the sculptor or names of sculptors who did the work via Google and Bing searches.  Perhaps I didn't dig deeply enough.  As it was, the items searches turned up became increasingly less relevant, so I decided not to turn searching into a death march.

Below are some photos I took.

Gallery

Treppenhaus staircase and fresco.

Corner detail containing sculptures of two men.

Another corner, two more men.

A third corner.

Segment of the Kaisersaal fresco.  Note the sculpted dog.

A charming sculpture in the Kaisersaal -- French appearing, and likely related to springtime.  I saw the title and sculptor's name is a catalog at the Residenz gift shop, but didn't buy the book.  And now I can't find that information on the Internet.  If you can, help me out in a comment.