Another possible public-domain cover for a Lovecraft book on his astronomy. Trouvelot’s “The great comet of 1881”. Taken from the largest .TIF, and tightly cropped from its white frame, and then given a slight edge-fix and clean in Photoshop. Saved to a less unwieldy .JPG with only slight compression while maintaining 300dpi. Again, it’s of a large enough size to be a front/back cover for a 6″ x 9″ Lulu POD book.
The Lovecraft connection is a little lacking, though. 1881 rather than his birth-year of 1890, and an observatory unlike that of the Ladd at Brown. Still, if historical veracity wasn’t a concern then one might paint out the door, and paint in a backlit HPL silhouette standing in the doorway.
Trouvelot’s drawing is certainly delightful, even if it doesn’t make up for his accidental
introduction of gypsy moth caterpillars into the United States. I looked into The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Manual that accompanied his astronomical prints, but I did not find any mention of which observatory was depicted. As you note, it is certainly not the Ladd Observatory, which was in any case not built until after 1881, nor does it appear to be Frank Seagrave’s private observatory, which was originally at 119 Benefit Street in Providence. Trouvelot was for a time associated with the Harvard College Observatory, but the picture is not of the main observatory building that housed its Great Refractor. For a time, Trouvelot maintained his own private observatory in Cambridge, near Harvard. However, I do not know how elaborate that observatory was or whether the drawing might be of it. Nonetheless, given Trouvelot’s association with the northeastern United States until his return to France, it is quite possible that the observatory in his drawing is based upon an original somewhere in New England. Perhaps that is close enough for a Lovecraft connection. — Horace Smith