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Lot Essay
Often termed "manuscript" globes, the finest globes from the sixteenth century were, rather than being made by scientific instruments makers, engraved by silver- and goldsmiths onto metal, copying printed cartography. Elly Decker (1) has identified a group of silver and gilt brass globes based on the gores published, circa 1560, by Francois Demongenet (d. before 1592), and this is indeed the cartography usually seen on early manuscript globes — for an example of which see the terrestrial globes sold in these rooms, 12 July 2017 lot 199.
The source for the cartography on the present globe is identified by the ambiguous 'IHC' in the Southern Hemisphere: presumably seen by the engraver as a Christogram, but it could also be read as Johannes Honteri Coronensis. Publishing from his own press in Kronstadt, Johannes Honter (1498-1549) produced a woodcut celestial map in 1532 which would first appear in the collected works of Ptolemy printed in Basel in 1541. Loosely based on the famous celestial planispheres of Albrecht Durer (1515) Honter's map portrays the constellations in contemporary dress.
The use of Honter's cartography is rare. We note that a larger pierced celestial globe based on it can be found as part of the celebrated Rothschild mechanical sphere by Pierre de Fobis, Lyons circa 1540-50. (Christie's 8 July 1999, lot 179).
1. Decker, E. 'The Demongenet Tradition in Globe Making' in Globes at Greenwich (Oxford, 1999) pp. 69-73
The source for the cartography on the present globe is identified by the ambiguous 'IHC' in the Southern Hemisphere: presumably seen by the engraver as a Christogram, but it could also be read as Johannes Honteri Coronensis. Publishing from his own press in Kronstadt, Johannes Honter (1498-1549) produced a woodcut celestial map in 1532 which would first appear in the collected works of Ptolemy printed in Basel in 1541. Loosely based on the famous celestial planispheres of Albrecht Durer (1515) Honter's map portrays the constellations in contemporary dress.
The use of Honter's cartography is rare. We note that a larger pierced celestial globe based on it can be found as part of the celebrated Rothschild mechanical sphere by Pierre de Fobis, Lyons circa 1540-50. (Christie's 8 July 1999, lot 179).
1. Decker, E. 'The Demongenet Tradition in Globe Making' in Globes at Greenwich (Oxford, 1999) pp. 69-73