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A fine Nuremburg table globe

JOHANN GABRIEL DOPPELMAYR (1671-1750), 1728

Details
A fine Nuremburg table globe
Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750), 1728
A 12½-inch diameter terrestrial globe made up of twelve finely engraved and hand coloured gores, pasted cartouche GLOBUS TERRESTRIS in quo locorum insigniorum situs terraeque facies, secundum praecipuas celeberrimorum nostri aevi Astronomorum et Geographorum observationes opera IOH. GABR. DOPPELMAIERI Mathem. Prof. Publ. Norib. exhibentur, concinnatus Ioh. Georg. Puschnero Chalcographo Norib. A.C. 1728; the equatorial and meridian of Ferro graduated in individual degrees and labelled every 5, the Polar and Tropic circles graduated in degrees and named but unlabelled, the ecliptic graduated in individual days of the houses of the Zodiac with names and symbols and labelled every ten days, the oceans with a second cartouche in the southern Pacific surrounded by portraits of various explorers, also showing numerous voyages including including those of Loys (1708) partially coloured in orange, Dampier (1688 & 1700), Tasman (1624), Olivieri de Noord (1600), Magellan (1599), Roggeveen and Behrens (1722) and Le Maire; Antarctica with no land shown but a note on the Antarctic Circle at 55°W I. diton detecta per F. Drack, the continents with nation states finely shaded and hand-coloured in outline in orange and green or left uncoloured, and showing a wealth of detail including mountains and forests in pictorial relief, rivers, towns and cities, some depicted by small pictograms, China showing Great Wall, Australia labelled TERRA VIT, TERRA AUSTRALIS and NOVA HOLLANDIA, also showing some place names such as terra Concordi detecta 1616, with a small stretch of western coastline missing and no southern or eastern coastline, the northern coastline misshapen, Tasmania shown as a strecth of southern coastline and labelled DIEMENS LAND, New Zealand shown as a stretch of western coastline and labelled NOVA ZEELANDIA, North America showing California as a penisnula, with no detail or coastline to the north, eastern Canada well-detailed with Labrador showing Eskimaux. With a stamped brass hour dial and pointer, the engraved brass meridian circle graduated in four quadrants, on a later mahogany Dutch-style stand with facsimile horison ring. A circular recess in the base housing a fine octagonal gilt and silver string-gnomon sun and moon dial, the gilt horizontal plate with foliate decoration at the corners and a folding string gnomon support, signed Johan Martin in Augspurg.
18in. (46cm.) high
Provenance
Sale, Christie's King Street, 5 November 2002, lot 7.
Special notice
This lot is offered without reserve. VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

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Lot Essay

Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750) was one of the most prolific of the globe-makers of early eighteenth century Nuremburg, as well as being a distinguished mathematician, translator, writer, editor and teacher. He studied in Altdorf and Halle, and travelled for some time in Germany, England and the Netherlands. Professor of Mathematics at the Aegidien Gymnasium in Nuremberg from 1704, globe-making was only a small part of his general efforts to encourage interest in science, in particular the progressive work of the likes of Newton, Huygens and Descartes, and transmission of this knowledge throughout Europe. He translated several works on astronomy and cartography from French and German, such as Nicolas Bion's L'usage des globes célestes et terrestres, et des sphères and Astronomy Thomas Street, as well as producing works of his own, including the Atlas novus coelestia of 1742. In addition, his work involved carrying out various astronomical and meteorological observations, and experiments with electrical phenomena. Indeed, it seems likely that his death in 1750 was was the result of an electric shock received whilst investigating the then newly-invented electrical condensors.
It may have been an association with Johann Baptist Homann (1664-1724) which awakened in Doppelmayr an interest in globes, originating with his contribution of an article entitled Einleitung zur Geographie for the latter's atlas of 1714. The terrestrial here offered is an example from Doppelmayr's first pair of globes, of 1728; as a first attempt they are extremely - albeit unsurprisingly - impressive, both in design and in execution. Stevenson records that there "are scarcely any map records of the period more interesting than those to be found on this globe of Doppelmayr's". There had already been several attempts to provide for the demand for globes in Germany following the decline of the Dutch globe-making industry, but Doppelmayr was the first to achieve real success and he soon dominated the German market for affordable and finely drawn and constructed globes.
Doppelmayr worked with the engraver Johann Georg Puschner I (1680-1749), who may well have been the maker of the spheres, mountings and stands as well. Johann Georg Puschner II continued to publish the globes after 1749 and when the copper plates came into the hands of Nuremburg publisher and pencil-maker Wolfgang Paul Jenig (d.1805), he reissued and updated Doppelmayr's globes with considerable commercial success, simply signing his name on the back of the meridian circle at the North Pole. The final reissue was published by Johann Bernard Bauer (1752-1839) in 1808 alongside his own output; their general commercial availability for such a long period of time is a testament to how prized they were.

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