Whatzit?

[webenda]

I wouldn't be surprised if Santa, or one of his operatives, read your post. He's going to get you, sooner or later, for that generic engine trick. Don't mess with the North Pole mafia.

Haven't you heard? The North Pole Melted. How do we know? Last summer a Russian Fishing Trawler crossed the Arctic Sea (without the aid of an icebreaker) and reported only water was left at the North Pole site of Don Santa and his Mafia Elves.

[Roy]

Yeah, he works out of Area 51, now. He and his crew are still known as the North Pole gang, just for tradition's sake.

[webenda]

The answer to this whatzit is not any object in the picture.
For example, if the whatzit was a locomotive and I showed a locomotive wheel, the answer would not be, "a wheel."
When enough of the locomotive is shown, you might know the whatzit is a locomotive.
In the case of this puzzle, starting with a bird, even when you see the entire picture, no object in the picture is the answer.

Whatzit?

[Roy]

Well, the painting is An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768), by Joseph Wright of Derby.

[webenda]

Your naming the painting satisfies the question, Roy.

[webenda]

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is a 1768 oil-on-canvas painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, one of a number of candlelit scenes that Wright painted during the 1760s.

The painting depicts a natural philosopher, a forerunner of the modern scientist, recreating one of Robert Boyle‘s air pump (vacuum pump) experiments, in which a bird is deprived of air, before a varied group of onlookers. The group exhibits a variety of reactions, but for most of the audience scientific curiosity overcomes concern for the bird.

It is like a movie in a painting... a variety of people with different reactions. We learn about their personalities through observation. They express their emotions in their faces and body posture.

On the far right, we have a love affair.

In the brightest part of the candlelit scene, we feel compassion for the bird.

[HONDO74]

Would have been better if he had used a big ugly rat instead of the bird.

[webenda]

Normally rats or sparrows were used. Sacrificing the pet cockatoo seems cold-hearted.

Humans have been tested in a vacuum accidentally. Jim LaBlanc survived, The Soyuz 11 crew died.
https://youtu.be/KO8L9tKR4CY

[webenda]

Whatzit these people are working on?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Skyscraper skylight roof?

[webenda]

No.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Captured UFO ?

[webenda]

No.

[Roy]

The Statue of Liberty?

[webenda]

No Statue of Liberty.