Jon Baddeley
Specialist Consultant Collectors, Science & Marine
The Stephen Edell Collection of Pocket and Table Globes
Lot 183Ф,Y
A rare Johann Baptist Homann 2 ½-inch pocket globe and armillary sphere in case, Nuremberg, circa 1715,
15 September 2021, 14:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £77,750 inc. premium
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Claire Tole-Moir
Head of Department
A rare Johann Baptist Homann 2 ½-inch pocket globe and armillary sphere in case, Nuremberg, circa 1715,
the globe with two cartouches printed GLOBUS TERRESTRIS juxta observationes Parisienses Regia Academia Scientiarum constructus; and Opera Ioh. Bapt. HOMANNI Geographi Noriberg, the terrestrial globe applied with twelve engraved hand-coloured paper gores and two polar calottes, California shown as an Island, no coast shown to West-North Canada, the Australian East Coast not delineated, New Zealand and Diemens land only partially shown, contained in original tooled leather case with hand-coloured engraved interior, with celestial gores laid to ecliptic; two cartouches to the case interior read Opera IO. B. HOMANNI S.C.M. Geographi Norinbergae and GLOBUS COELESTIS juxta Observationes Parisienses exhibitus, the terrestrial globe splitting along the equator to open to printed card armillary sphere, the case with single catch and eye,
2 3/4in (7cm) diameter
2 3/4in (7cm) diameter
Footnotes
Provenance:
Sotheby's, London, 31 March 1979.
The Stephen Edell Collection.
After a brief period of Jesuit monasticism, Johann Baptist Homann (1664-1724) converted to Protestantism and moved to Nuremburg in the late 1680s to pursue a career in maps. By 1702 Homann had founded his own publishing business focussing on maps. He had access to the terrestrial and celestial gores published by the renowned astronomer Georg Christoph Eimmart (1638-1705), and may have had access to Eimmart's original copper plates.
Literature:
Elly Dekker, Globes at Greenwich, London, 1999.
Elly Dekker & Peter Van der Krogt, Globes from the Western World, London, 1993.