Donati's Comet, over Paris, France, on 5 October 1858. This artwork shows the view looking down the River Seine. The comet was named after its discoverer, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Donati (1826-1873). Donati discovered the comet on 2 June 1858. The comet brightened over the following months, reaching its closest point to Earth on 10 October 1858. It was one of the brightest and most spectacular comets of the 19th century, and the first to be photographed. Here, the comet is above a building called the Conciergerie, a former royal palace and prison, which is on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine. Artwork published in Les Cometes (Paris, 1875), a 470-page French book about comets.