CHESLEY BONESTELL. "30 MILES ABOVE ARISTARCHUS," CA 1949

CHESLEY BONESTELL 

"30 MILES ABOVE ARISTARCHUS," CA 1949

Oil on board, 10 ¾ by 12 inches (sight), signed "Chesley Bonestell" (lower left). Captioning in pencil to back of frame: "30 miles above Aristarchus | 29 miles in diameter. Possibly impact of meteor on bed of white pumice the case. | 6,900 ft deep." Matted and framed to 17 ¼ by 18 inches. 

A STRIKING DEPICTION OF THE LUNAR SURFACE FROM THE FATHER OF SPACE ART

Aristarchus is considered the brightest of the large formations on the lunar surface, and is visible to the naked eye, being 23 miles in diameter, and 10,000 feet deep. Probably formed about 175 million years ago, it is one of the most geologically interesting regions of the moon, and there have even been periodic sightings of reddish gas emissions from the crater rim.

Bonestell revisited Aristarchus crater as an artistic subject several times. The present work appears to be an alternate version of the black and white painting "50 Miles Above Aristarchus" published in The Conquest of Space (1949). 

REFERENCES

See: Ron Miller & Fredrick C. Durant III. The Art of Chesley Bonestell, pp. 60-61