SEUTTER, GEORG MATTHÄUS, AUGSBURG, 1710

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18th CENTURY GLOBES

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SEUTTER, GEORG MATTHÄUS, AUGSBURG, 1710
GLOBUS TERRSTRIS juxta recentissimas ob.servatio. et navigationes peritissimor Geograph. accuratissime delineat, cura et sumtibus MATTH. SEUTTERI Chalcogr:August
A fine and rare 8-inch (20.3cm.) diameter terrestrial table globe made up of twelve strongly hand-coloured engraved gores and two polar calottes laid on a hollow papier-mâché and plaster sphere, the equatorial and prime meridian of Ferro graduated in individual degrees and labelled every 10°, the ecliptic graduated in individual days of the houses of the Zodiac with sigils, all three with subdivisions coloured alternately red, blue or not at all, the oceans with wind roses in the northern and southern Atlantic, two in the Indian Ocean, and two in the northern Pacific, the maker's cartouche in the southern Pacific, a second cartouche in the northern Pacific reading Hoc est illud punctum quod intertot Gentes ferro et Igne dividitur. Seneca, the continents with nation states shaded and coloured in outline in orange and green and showing mountains and forests in pictorial relief, and rivers, deserts, towns and cities, China showing the Great Wall, all coastlines crudely drawn and somewhat misshapen, Australia labelled NOVA HOLLANDIA and shown joined to Papua New Guinea, but both lacking eastern coastline, a stretch of southern coastline shown for Terra d'Antonio Diemens, a stretch of eastern coastline for NOVA SELANDIA, a land mass shown covering the northern Pacific labelled simply SEPTENTRIONALIS and showing Copmpagnies Land and Neu Nord Wallis, California shown as an island labelled Insula Californiæ, the interior of Africa with a cartouche reading Niti originem cum Recentionibus Geogrpah[..]os [.]uc appas[..]nas, Antarctica shown as a continent with coastline but labelled Terra Australis in Cognita, with a stamped brass hour dial with pointer at the North Pole, the stamped brass meridian ring graduated in four quadrants, the mahogany horizon with hand-coloured engraved paper ring showing degrees in four quadrants and 0-180° (x2), days of the houses of the Zodiac, days of the month with dominical letters and Saint's Days, and thirty-two wind directions, raised on four ebonised and turned tapering columns united by cross stretchers with a small circular base and meridian support, on four bun feet -- 11¼in. (28.5cm.) high

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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

Given his name is so well-known as a globe-maker, suprisingly little appears to be recorded definitively about Georg Matthäus Seutter (1678-1757). What is known, however, is that he switched professions from working in his maternal grandfather's brewery to training as a cartographer and engraver with Johann Baptista Homann in Nuremburg. In 1707 he established himself as a cartographer, geographer and globe-maker in Augsburg. His huge variety of maps, city plans and other charts survive in great numbers, although his globes appear to be more scarce. It is quite possible that Seutter concentrated more on his maps than his globes, since he could not compete with his nearest rival and the leading globe-maker of the time, Nuremberg maker Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750). It is agreed that Seutter issued his first pair of globes, with a diameter of 8in., of which this is an example of the terrestrial, in around 1710. Others of his globes recorded include celestial spheres of, variously, 64cm. diameter, 64cm. circumference and 160cm. diameter.
Seutter held the title of "Imperial Geographer" for the two years before his death as a reward for his dedicating a large atlas to Emperor Charles VI. He was initially succeeded by his son Albrecht Carl and by his son-on-law Tobias Konrad Lotter, and subsequently by Matthäus Albrecht Lotter (1741-1810), the son of Tobias.

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