拍品 37
37
A rare mid 19th-Century Welsh slate octagonal horizontal garden sundial,

细节
A rare mid 19th-Century Welsh slate octagonal horizontal garden sundial,
signed RICHD. MELVIL Maker to the Crystal Palace Co. London, the central bronze gnomon with scroll support set for latitude 50° 51' North, with eight subsidiary gnomons inscribed:

1. Morning New York
2. Afternoon Cape of G. Hope
3. Afternoon Alexandra
4. Night New Zealand
5. Night Melbourne
6. Evening Borneo
7. Evening C. of Sumatra
8. Morning Charleston

Dials 3, 4, 5, and 6 each inscribed with part calendar scales and instructions for addition or subtraction of time (equation of time), the dial further engraved: Horas non numero nisi serenas, Sic transit gloria mundi and Sol non occidat super viacundiam vestram, the slate dial formed of two plates fixed so that the lower flanges of the gnomons are hidden between the plates (one gnomon loose), mounted on a carved stone column, the capitol with vine-leaf and grape decoration, with plinth base -- 42½in. (108cm.) high

See Colour Illustration and Detail
出版
CLIFTON, Gloria Directory Of British Scientific Instrument Makers 1550-1851 (London, 1995)
NICHOLLS, R.A. "A Dial By Richard Melville In Salisbury, Wilts." in The Journal Of The British Sundial Society (June, 1995)
SIMPSON, A.D.C. "Richard Melville, Maker Of Sundials" in T.N. CLARKE, A.D. MORRISON-LOW and A.D.C. SIMPSON Brass And Glass (n.p., 1989)
SOMERVILLE, A.R. The Ancient Sundials Of Scotland (London, 1990)

拍品专文

Richard Melville, also known as Melvill, a prolific dial maker who worked in Ireland and Scotland, was known for his Welsh slate dials. A number have survived, but few as complex as this, the "Salisbury Dial". Various forms of these multi-gnomon horizontal dials were sold, being square, rectangular, round or octagonal. Like most of Melville's dials, this example bears no date, but the Crystal Palace Co. was formed in 1852 to move the Crystal Palace to Sydenham in 1854, and Clifton notes that Melville was working in Liverpool in 1856, in London in 1858, and in Dublin from 1864-71, indicating that this dial was made between 1856 and 1864.