Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.10746
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    Krakatoa sunset

    Date
    ca. 1887
    Creator
    Karl Johann Kiessling (1839 - 1905, German) , Physicist
    Object type
    Archive reference number
    Material
    Dimensions
    height (painting): 137mm
    width (painting): 193mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > volcano
    Description
    Sunset afterglow over water [seen from Hamburg in Germany?] following the eruption of the volcano on Krakatoa, the island in the Sunda Strait, Indonesia on 27 August 1883.

    The figure is inscribed lower right: “Herrn E.Douglas Archibald mit vorzuchlicher Hochachtaag. Kiessling Prof.”

    Kiessling sent this illustration to Edmund Douglas Archibald (1851-1910) British meteorologist, who mentions it in an accompanying letter to George James Symons (1838-1900), 29 March 1887: “I am sorry to have omitted putting in the sunset picture. I took it out to shew somebody and I suppose thought it was still there. There was in fact what Herbert Spencer would call a want of correspondence between my knowledge of its environment and the environment itself. I shall bring it on Thursday.”

    Karl Johann Kiessling (1839-1905) replicated twilight glow phenomena in the laboratory and was the author of Die Dämmerungserscheinungen im Jahre 1883 und ihre physikalische Erklärung...Hamburg u. Leipzig, Verlag Leopold Voss, 1885).
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > Indonesia
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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