In 1851, Jean Baptiste Vérany made a promise remarkable for his time—to show sea creatures vividly alive, supple and shifting, rendered in dazzling chromolithographs. Inspired by a red umbrella squid he found washed onto the pebble beach in his hometown of Nice, he began paying fishermen who could bring him other specimens. In total he created 41 color plates, including one that would become famous as an illustration in Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la mer (Toilers of the Sea). Alas, Vérany was never credited as the illustrator, and would drift into obscurity shortly after his death.