An elegant pair of library globes from the Cary family; the Cary globe-making business was started in 1791 by brothers John (c.1754-1835) and William (c.1760-1825) around 1791, with an advertisement in the Traveller's Companion offering globes of 3½, 9, 12, and 21 inches diameter. At this time the company was based at 181 Strand; around 1820 it moved to 86 St James's Street, and the name of the business was changed to G. & J. Cary, after the sons of John Cary, George (d.1859) and John (1791-1852). During the first half of the nineteenth century, the company enjoyed the lion's share of the English globe market, together with the companies of Newton and Bardin. The firm was closed around 1850.
The celestial globe offered here is one of two types manufactured by Cary. At the beginning of the 19th-Century, as more practical instruments became available for the study of the heavens (such as the moveable planisphere), the vogue for celestial globes started to die out; figurative depictions of the constellations began to look less scientific and gradually became more schematic until replaced by simple lines. Around 1817, Cary began to produce two types of celestial globe, one with figures and one without.