JTTNER, Joseph, Prague, 1828

Details

JTTNER, Joseph, Prague, 1828
Bearbeitet vo[n Jo]feph Jtner k.k.str:Artillerie Hauptman i[m Ja]hr 1828 zu [Prag]
A rare armillery sphere, the blue- and green-painted wooden earthball atop a brass column with attached spindle with brass moonball, and a second spindle with two further brass discs, the other planets represented by four orange-painted wooden balls, Saturn with carved ring, suspended on brass arms of varying lengths from the inner ecliptic circle, also with decorative cast brass sunface, the two meridian circles, polar, tropic and equatorial rings all papered with graduations in degrees and named, the ecliptic band papered with decorative pictorial representations of the signs of the Zodiac, the stars shown to seven orders of magnitude and labelled with Greek characters, with ecliptic ring graduated in degrees and extensions of graduated equatorial and tropic rings, also with trade cartouche and a second cartouche reading Ringkugel auf welcher der Stand der Geftirne fr den 1er Jnner 1850, dan des Scheinbare und Coper nicanische Planeten Syftem vergeftellt sind (all papering with some water damage and some small areas of loss), with engraved brass meridian circle (later) raised on a baluster turned ebonised column and stepped circular plinth base -- 25in. (63.5cm.) high

See Colour Illustration and Details

Literature

DEKKER, Elly, and van der KROGT, Peter, Globes from the Western World (London, 1993) p.150
SCHMIDT, Professor Rudolf, Globe Labels: an addition to the Catalogue "The World In Your Hands" (Vienna, 1995) p.10, 6.5

Lot Essay

Joseph Jtner (1775-1848) was the first successful Austrian globe-maker in an otherwise largely undistinguished national industry. A captain in the Austrian army, having worked on a number of military maps, he collaborated in 1822 with Lieutenant Franz Lettany (1793-1863) to produce his first 1-foot diameter terrestrial globe. The companion celestial globe, in which Lettany had no hand, was produced in 1824 and like this armillary sphere, showed the stars calculated for the year 1850, which would fall two years after his death. Working from Prague, however, his initial success was no match for the soon-to-be pervasive influence of the most prolific of Czech manufacturers, publishers to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, Jan Felkl and Son.

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