麻豆传媒

THE Great Exhibition of 1851 was a huge success 鈥� so huge that in 1852 the iron and glass structure that had contained it was reassembled on parkland in Penge in south London, forming the nucleus of a permanent complex of gardens, fountains and unusual attractions. The Geological Court, arguably its most beguiling exhibit, still enchants and inspires today.

Cleverly designed to evoke lost landscapes and peppered with sculptures of long-extinct creatures, this naturalistic celebration of geology and palaeontology opened in 1854. Teams of experts were involved, led by natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins, geologist David Thomas Ansted and mining engineer James Campbell. Theirs was the world鈥檚 first attempt to depict prehistory at scale in sculptural form.

Today, enormous sloths, dainty pterosaurs and mighty marine reptiles still eye each other warily across the banks of artificial islands. Delicate and weathered, they are also oddly modern. The whole concept of a dinosaur was just over a decade old when the court opened, and visitors were startled to discover that these creatures weren鈥檛 the appalling dragons imagined by artists only a few years before. 鈥淚t seems a very model of innocence and contentment,鈥� wrote one journalist about the iguanodon.

In The Art and Science of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, palaeoartist Mark Witton and evolutionary biologist Ellinor Michel have assembled an indispensable work of scholarship that is also a rich visual resource. Given the fragility of the site, a record this detailed 鈥� and so charming 鈥� is long overdue.