Before you Walked with Dinosaurs, were welcomed to Jurassic Park, or found the Lost World...basically before most Dinosaur Media, there were these guys.
The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are a series of sculptures located within Crystal Palace Park in London, England. It depicts various prehistoric life as was known in Victorian times, first opened in 1854 for The Geat Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. The scultures were all done by artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, with some technical input from noted palaeontologist of the time Sir Richard Owen.
They're also well known for a tale that a dinner party was actually held in an in-progress model of the Iguanodon.note The sculptures are still present where the Crystal Palace once stood, and spent a long time in a rather dilapidated state. They have now been restored, and are preserved in the Crystal Palace Park.
Examples of Tropes
- Amphibian at Large: The Labyrinthodon (or more properly Mastodonsaurus) are depicted as giant frogs. While it was indeed an amphibian, specifically what's called a Temnospondyl,
it wasn't a frog, and looked more like a cross between a newt and an alligator. - The Artifact: Originally there were water systems that would make water levels rise and fall and reveal the marine reptiles, particularly the mosasaur to weasel around how it wasn't well understood at the time. This no longer happens, but they're still positioned in a way that would allow them to.
- Artistic License – Paleontology: They date back to the 1850s, so of course these extinct creatures are going to have this. There's a reason the lizard-like Iguanodon with horns have become a go-to example of Science Marches On. Palaeontologist Mark Witton has an
entire series on the specific details for each creature on his own blog, but specifics and egregious examples are listed here:- The most obvious one is that all the dinosaurs are depicted as big four-legged lizards. Out of the dinosaurs present, only Hylaeosaurus even remotely resembles its real-life inspiration, at least in the sense of being a quadrupedal reptile with spiky armor.
- Dicynodon are depicted as shelled turtle-like creatures due to only being known from skull fragments in the 1850s. They were more akin to pigs in build and nature.
- The early horse Palaeotherium is depicted as being like a tapir, which it wasn't in life.
- Both them and the Megatherium also have trunk, which neither actually had.
- The pterosaurs look rather weird from today's perspective, with their long curvy necks, semi-circular wings, and scaly skin. Interestingly, they're shown resting on all fours, which is something that wouldn't come into fashion in depictions of pterosaurs until decades later.
- Irony: The creature that most resembles an iguana out of the creatures isn't Iguanodon, but Hylaeosaurus, complete with back spikes.
- The Marvelous Deer: The giant extinct deer Megaloceros are quite imposing due to being closer to visitors and their size.
- Mammoths Mean Ice Age: Or at least would have: a mammoth and mastodon model were planned for the Cenozoic section of the park, but neither were made.
- The Place: The painting is named after the Crystal Palace Park in London, England, where the sculptures are located.
- Prehistoric Monster: Victorian England's views of prehistory as a savage time and place does leak into the designs and presentation at times.
- Sea Monster: Quite a few are represented, specifically Plesiosaurus, Mosasaurus, the crocodile relative Teleosaurus, and ichthyosaurs Temnodontosaurus and Ichthyosaurus.
- Shown Their Work: Well, for their time at least, but a lot of research and time was given into not only all the creatures, but displays on geology and rock formations. Not all of it has aged well, needless to say.
- Trope Makers: For most Dinosaur Media and Palaeoart. No other works about the subject existed beforehand, at least not on the scale of it.
