AKERMAN, Andreæ, Uppsala 1759/1779

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AKERMAN, Andreæ, Uppsala 1759/1779
A fine and rare pair of 12-inch (30.5cm.) diameter table globes:
the terrestrial GLOBUS TERRAQUEUS cura Societ. Cosmograph. Upsal. Editus Ao 1759 ab Andrea Akerman. Reg. Societ. Scient. Upsal. Sculpt. Nunc Accedente Consilio Reg. Acad. Scient. Stockholm ex recentissimio Observationibus Emendatus Opera Friderici Akrel ad Reg. Acad. Scient. Stockholm Sculp. 1779, made up of two sets of twelve hand-coloured engraved gores and two polar calottes laid on a hollow pasteboard and plaster sphere, the equatorial and meridian of Ferro graduated in individual degrees and labelled every 5°, the ecliptic graduated in individual days of the houses of the Zodiac with sigils and labelled every ten days, the Atlantic and Indian Oceans with dotted lines for Magnetis Declinatio Orientalis and Occidentalis and one for Linea Declinationis expers with a note reading Qua ratione hoc lineæ, quæ Magnetis variationem, hoc tempore designant, ulterius vel continuantur vel in se redeunt, adhuc est incognitum., also with trade winds in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea, Antarctica with no landmass shown, the continents with some nation states delicately shaded in olive green, Brazil in pale blue, and showing mountains and forests in pictorial relief, rivers, and symbols for towns and cities, China showing the Great Wall, Japan shown misshapen, southern Australia shown with projected coastline in dotted outline joined to Tasmania, western Australia labelled with Terre de With detecta 1623, NOVA HOLLANDIA, Terra concordiæ det:1628, Terra Lewini 1622 and Terre de Nuit, eastern Australia labelled NOVA WALISIA Det. 1770 with numerous promontories labelled, the islands of New Zealand labelled EAHEI-NO:MAWE and TAVAI-POEAMMOO, Africa showing SARA vel DESERTUM BARBARIÆ, the Montes Lunæ and HOTTENTOTÆ and other details, Central America labelled NOVA HISPANIA, North America with little detail but with various notes in Canada Terra Det:a D: Tschi=rikow 1741, Terra detecta a Bering 1741, Si fides habenda iti=nerario Dni de Fuente, heic erit terra ab illo conspecta, with no western or northern coastline for Canada and Alaska, a small stretch of projected coastline at the tip of Alaska labelled Lilas det.a Cook and a note near the Arctic Incognitum est, utrum Mare an Terra haec occupent loca;
the celestial ATLANTI Acad. Ups. Scientiarumq, R.R.S. S. Coll. Nom. Præs. etc Illusbmo Excellento Com. ac Domino Dom. C. EHRENPREUS Hunc GLOBUM COELESTEM Ex Flamsteedii Catalogo et recardissimis De la Caillii observationibus ad Annum 1760 adornatum Consecrat Societas Cosmogr. Ups.s Interprete A. Akerman Reg. Soc. Scient. Sculptore 1759 made up of two sets of twelve hand-coloured engraved half-gores and two polar calottes laid to the celestial poles on a hollow papier-mâché and plaster sphere, the equatorial and equinoctial colure graduated in individual degrees and labelled every 10°, the ecliptic graduated in individual days of the houses of the Zodiac with sigils and labelled every ten days, the constellations depicted by mythical beasts and figures and scientific instruments, the Ptolomeic constellations attractively shaded in various colours, the stars shown to various orders of magnitude but with no key, and labelled with Greek characters;
both spheres with a stamped brass hour dial with pointer, the stamped brass meridian circle divided in four quadrants, the octagonal mahogany horizon with hand-coloured engraved paper showing degrees of amplitude and azimuth, days of the houses of the Zodiac, days of the month with Saint's Days, sixteen compass directions and four wind directions, the edge of the horizon with remains of red paint, raised on four turned legs united by shaped cross stretchers to the meridian support -- 19¼in. (48.9cm.) high (2)

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拍品專文

Andreæ Akerman (c.1723-1766) was an engraver with a strong interest in mathematical science, and a founder member of the 'Kosmografiska Sällskapet' (Cosmographical Society) of Sweden, founded in 1758. The Society, following the French example, was strongly supportive of those of its members who wished to pursue geographical research and publication. As such, with the society's financial backing, Akerman was able to set up a workshop for producing globes, and in 1759 published his first pair, of 12in. diameter. Further issues were of 4¼in. diameter in 1762, the celestial gores being designed for either convex or concave application, and a 23in. diameter pair in 1766. Due to careful design of the expensive copper plates (dovetailing the northern and southern hemisphere gores on one plate), Akerman was able to offer his globes relatively cheaply on the domestic market. However, to be able to compete against the more established foreign firms and their imports, the prices had to be maintained at an impractically low level, and despite further financial assistance, he died in poverty in 1778. After Akerman's death, the workshop was taken over by Frederik Akrel (1748-1804) who enjoyed rather more commercial success, with the joint backing of the Swedish State, as did Akrel's son and successor Carl Frederik (1779-1862). The terrestrial of the pair offered here represents one of the Akerman globes reissued the year following his death, with a cartouche bearing Akrel's name pasted over the original. Akrel was to update these gores for reissue again the following year, however, taking into account the extensive new discoveries from Cook's voyages.
Akerman's globes are of interest not merely because they represent the finest Swedish globes of their period, but also because of his use of pictorial relief to denote mountains and forests, and the detail applied to the oceans. This was due to the influence of the geographer Torbern Olaf Bergman, one of the other founder members of the Cosmographical Society. Under his influence Akerman was also one of the first modern cartographers to take note of the long forgotten Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, which following its initial discovery in 1606 seemed to have been almost entirely ignored. For the celestial gores, Akerman used the Catalogus Brittanicus by British Royal Astronomer John Flamsteed for the northern hemisphere, and for the southern the 1756 catalogue of Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, including Lacaille's fourteen new constellations, most of which were drawn as scientific instruments.
Count Carl Diedric Ehrenpreus (1692-1760) was a councillor of the (Swedish) realm, and a chancellor of Uppsala University, one of the centres of activity for the Cosmographical Society.