CUSHEE, Leonard Compere, London

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CUSHEE, Leonard Compere, London
A New GLOBE of the EARTH by L. Cushee [c.1760]
A fine and rare 2¾-inch (7cm.) diameter miniature terrestrial globe made up of twelve partially hand-coloured engraved gores and two polar calottes, the equatorial and equinoctial colure graduated in degrees, the First Meridian from London ungraduated, the ecliptic graduated in days of the houses of the Zodiac with sigils, the oceans with trade winds and the track of Admiral Anson's voyage, the Antarctic marked ICE SEA with no land mass shown,the Arctic similarly described, the continents with Europe outlined in green and some of North America with faint green outline, showing rivers, deserts and the Chinese Wall, northern Europe/Russia labelled Dominion of Moscovy, central Russia labelled GREAT TARTARY with Independent Tartary a little to the south, China labelled Chinese Tartary, Japan shown misshapen, with a stretch of southern coastline in the ocean to the north-east labelled De Gama's L, an unlabelled island in the ocean between Russia and Alaska, North America with no northern coastline and labelled Unknown Parts but showing the states of N.Carolina, S.Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, New England and New Britain, also with New Mexico, Mexico and New Spain, California shown as a peninsula, Greenland shown joined to North America but with no northern coastline or southern tip, Africa with the states of Morocco, Barbary, Egypt, Biledulgerid, Zaara (or the Desert), Negroland, Guinea, Nubia, Aballina, Anian, Ethiopia, Congo, Monoemugi, Zanguebar, Monomotapa and Caffers, Australia shown joined to New Guinea and Tasmania with very little detail but labelled NEW HOLLAND, N. Zeeland shown by a small stretch of western coastline (some light staining, extremely discretely repaired crack just south of the equator from the Indian Ocean across the Pacific to South America), in the original fishskin-covered spherical wooden case, the interior laid with two sets of twelve hand-coloured engraved celestial gores and two polar calottes laid to the celestial poles, the equatorial and the equinoctial and solstitial colures graduated in degrees, the ecliptic graduated in days of the houses of the Zodiac with sigils, the stars shown to several orders of magnitude but with no key, and the constellations depicted by mythical beasts and figures with some objects (slight staining), the case with red-painted rim and two brass hooks and eyes (one hook broken)

See Colour Illustration and Detail

Literature

CLIFTON, Gloria, Directory of British Scientific Instrument Makers (London, 1995)
DEKKER, Elly, and van der KROGT, Peter, Globes From The Western World (London, 1993)

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.

Lot Essay

Clifton records Leonard Compere Cushee as working around 1761 at the address "Opposite the Temple-gate, Fleet St, London", and as being the son of Thomas Cushee, leatherseller, of Clerkenwell, London. He was apprenticed to Nathanial Hill, who worked between 1746 and 1764 from The Globe and Sun, Chancery Lane, Fleet St. Clifton also records Richard Cushee, who may have been Leonard's brother or cousin, as working from this address in 1731, with Hill as his apprentice (and as being succeeded by E. Cushee).

Dekker & van der Krogt state that Leonard Cushee's globes were apparently sold by Benjamin Cole (1695-1766) from his workshop "The Orrery & Globe", previously run by Thomas Wright. It is undoubtedly no coincidence that in 1731 Richard Cushee collaborated with Wright to publish The Description and Use of the Globes, and the Orrery by Joseph Harris.

Very little more appears to be known of Leonard Compere Cushee.

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