designs for airships, by Charles Dellschau, in the era of Jules Verne

Charles August Albert Dellschau (4 June 1830 Brandenburg, Prussia – 20 April 1923 Houston, Texas) was one of America's earliest known visionary artists, who created drawings, collages and watercolors of airplanes and airships and bound them in 12 known large scrapbooks that were discovered decades after his death.

It is known that he emigrated from Brandenburg, Prussia to Texas in 1850, where he worked as a butcher, and at some point after marriage, Charles started working as a sales clerk in his in-laws' saddlery shop.

 In addition to his stepdaughter, Dellschau had three children: two daughters, Bertha and Mary, and a son, Edward, who died in 1877 at age 6. Dellschau's wife, Antonia, died in the same year, leaving her husband a widower at age 47.

After his retirement in 1899, he lived with his stepdaughter and her husband, and worked in their attic apartment in Houston, Texas, where he filled at least 13 notebooks with drawings, watercolor paintings, and collages depicting fantastical airships.

After his death, Dellschau's home remained in the hands of his descendants. His notebooks of paintings and drawings, as well as his diaries were left virtually untouched for half a century until the late 1960s. Following a fire, the house was cleared and at least 12 of the notebooks were placed on the sidewalk to be discarded.

Fred Washington, a local antiques and used furniture dealer, spotted the books, and for $100 bought them from the trash collector. The books sat undisturbed in Washington's store under a pile of discarded carpet for over a year.

 In 1968, Mary Jane Victor, an art student at the University of St. Thomas in Houston stumbled upon the notebooks, and persuaded Washington to lend some of them to the university for a display on the story of flight. She also brought them to the attention of art patron and collector Dominique de Menil. Mrs. de Menil purchased four of the notebooks for $1,500. 

Of the remaining books, seven were purchased by Peter Navarro, a Houston commercial artist and UFO researcher. After studying them, Navarro sold four of the notebooks to the Witte Museum in San Antonio, and the San Antonio Museum of Art. 

One notebook ultimately ended in the private abcd (art brut connaissance & diffusion) collection in Paris belonging to Bruno Decharme, a French filmmaker and art collector. The rest of the notebooks ended up in private hands. Some were dismantled and single pages were sold. In 2016, a double sided page dated 1919, sold for $22,500 at Christie's

https://picryl.com/media/charles-dellschau-work-example-10-5b97f0

reminds me of Von Dutch's sketchbook merged with the Capt America movie flying aircraft carriers of S.H.I.E.L.D

https://www.thefolkaholic.com/artd-f/charles-dellschau