Étienne Gaspard Robert’s La Minerve Airship

Illustration of La Minerve Airship, designed in 1803 by Étienne Gaspard Robert. This fictional flying ship included a church, cannons and a massive keg of German beer.

Pictured above is an airship design from 1803 by Étienne Gaspard Robert. Robert was a Belgian stage magician and physicist, but he also designed and flew balloons. This is his most famous design, called La Minerve. Robert described the craft as an aerial vessel destined for discoveries, and proposed to all the Academies of Europe. It was meant to be an exploratory vessel which would make multi-month trips around the world with a crew of sixty academics and scientists. Robert designed his aerial ship to include all the things necessary for the convenience, the observations, and even the pleasures of the voyagers. On the whole, it’s quite impractical, but it’s also amazing.

The craft is essentially a floating town, which includes a market, observatory, gym, kitchen, medicine room, theatre, music room, study, and quarters for the entire crew. Robert planned for his airship to traverse the entire globe, exploring places too difficult to reach on land.

I love the way Robert mashes up a balloon with a ship, and then seems to attach different bits and pieces around it to increase visual interest. My favorite parts are the wings at the top and the massive beer keg suspended below the hull. The wings are ornamental, of course, since they’re much too small to actually steer the craft. As for the beer keg, who wouldn’t want a few thousand gallons of beer to drink during a months-long voyage?

La Minerve is wonderfully optimistic, and credit should be given to Robert for dreaming it up. As such, his illustration has been reproduced many times over the years. A simple internet search for ‘La Minerve airship’ brings up all kinds of variations of the original, which is testament to how eye-catching it really is.


Details about the airship and quotes from Étienne Gaspard Robert taken from: Marion, Fulgence. Wonderful Balloon Ascents: Or, The Conquest Of The Skies. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co., 1874. 32-35.