JOHNSTON, William & Alexander Keith, London & Edinburgh

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JOHNSTON, William & Alexander Keith, London & Edinburgh
30 inch Terrestrial Globe by W. & A.K. Johnston. Limited. Geographers, Engravers & Printer. Edinburgh & London [c.1902]
A fine 30-inch (76.1 cm.) diameter terrestrial library globe made up of two sets of thirty-six colour printed gores and two polar calottes, the equatorial graduated in degrees in two directions and in hours and minutes, the Greenwich meridian graduated in degrees, the ecliptic graduated in days of the houses of the Zodiac with symbols, the oceans showing an analemma, steamship routes with ports of arrival and departure and distances in nautical miles, and submarine cable lines with points of origin, some with dates such as Sub. Tel. 1901 C. Canso to Azores, the Antarctic shown with fragments of coastline, the continents with some nation states delicately outlined in green or orange and showing mountains, rivers, deserts, towns and cities, the congo labelled CONGO FREE STATE (very faint neatly repaired crack around northern hemisphere, dent with small paper loss near South Pole) with two punched brass hour dials and meridian circle graduated on both faces, the accompanying carved mahogany stand with printed and hand-coloured paper horizon ring graduated in degrees in both directions, days of the month with names and days of the houses of the Zodiac with symbols, also showing compass directions, on fluted herm supports, each of four masks representing one of the continents, America, Africa, Asia and Europe, joined by shaped stretchers, on tapering feet (restorations to the stretcher) -- 45in. (115cm.) high

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Sale room notice

In our opinion, and in the light of further research, the stand was not originally supplied with the globe and is therefore of a later date.

Lot Essay

William and Alexander Keith Johnston both worked for the Scottish globemakers Kirkwood & Sons until 1824, before establishing their own business in 1825, successfully publishing globes into the 20th century, including their celebrated 30-inch globe which was awarded a number of medals at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and was the first of its type made in Britian.

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