Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750) was one of the most prolific of the globe-makers of early eighteenth century Nuremburg, as well as being a distinguished mathematician, translator, writer, editor and teacher. He studied in Altdorf and Halle, and travelled for some time in Germany, England and the Netherlands. Professor of Mathematics at the Aegidien Gymnasium in Nuremberg from 1704, globe-making was only a small part of his general efforts to encourage interest in science, in particular the progressive work of the likes of Newton, Huygens and Descartes, and transmission of this knowledge throughout Europe. He translated several works on astronomy and cartography from French and German, such as Nicolas Bion's L'usage des globes célestes et terrestres, et des sphères and Astronomy by Thomas Street, as well as producing works of his own, including the Atlas novus coelestia of 1742. In addition, his work involved carrying out various astronomical and meteorological observations, and experiments with electrical phenomena. Indeed, it seems likely that his death in 1750 was was the result of an electric shock received whilst investigating the then newly-invented electrical condensors.
It may have been an association with Johann Baptist Homann (1664-1724) which awakened in Doppelmayr an interest in globes, originating with his contribution of an article entitled Einleitung zur Geographie for the latter's atlas of 1714. The terrestrial here offered is an example from Doppelmayr's first pair of globes, of 1728; as a first attempt they are extremely - albeit unsurprisingly - impressive, both in design and in execution. Stevenson records that there "are scarcely any map records of the period more interesting than those to be found on this globe of Doppelmayr's". There had already been several attempts to provide for the demand for globes in Germany following the decline of the Dutch globe-making industry, but Doppelmayr was the first to achieve real success and he soon dominated the German market for cheap but finely drawn and constructed globes.
Doppelmayr worked with the engraver Johann Georg Puschner I (1680-1749), who may well have been the maker of the spheres, mountings and stands as well. Johann Georg Puschner II continued to publish the globes after 1749 and when the copper plates came into the hands of Nuremburg publisher and pencil-maker Wolfgang Paul Jenig (d.1805), he reissued and updated Doppelmayr's globes with considerable commercial success, simply signing his name on the back of the meridian circle at the North Pole. The final reissue was published by Johann Bernard Bauer (1752-1839) in 1808 alongside his own output; their general commercial availability for such a long period of time is a testament to how prized they were.
Although Johann Martin (1646-1720) was a near contemporary of Doppelmayr, and lived and worked in Augsburg, the sundial in the base of this globe was not designed to go there - it is not possible to use a sundial when it is shaded from the sun by a globe. That said, it is not at all possible to determine when the globe and sundial were first married together, and it could have been quite natural for the first owner of this globe to have either removed the existing compass, or had a recess made, to house his rather handsome Martin instrument, as of course the compass part of the dial is still of use.