Beschreibung:

Ptolemaic Armillary Sphere. [Paris: c.1800.] With a small 2 inch diameter earth-ball at the center, the black and white printed gores slight restored, surrounded by sun and moon discs on metal quadrants, and a series of pasteboard circles (the equator tropics and plane of the ecliptic), each with a green painted face, the reverse with a engraved papered surface, all joined by a equinoctial and solstitial colure and surrounded by a planar zodiac band. The armillary structure, diameter 12 inches (30 5mm), mounted on an ebonised wooden stand with central column and turned wooden base. Slight rubbing and scratches on some surfaces. Overall height 18 inches (460 mm). An attractive late 18th century French Ptolemaic armillary sphere (i.e., with the earth at the center of the cosmos) of the Delamarche School. The 18th century French globe makers such as Vaugondy and Delamarche were adept at producing these scientific instruments which were both decorative and functional, just as English globe makers of this period specialized in pocket globes for the use by gentlemen. See similar examples, Christie's Exhibition, The World in your Hands, 4.32; 6.3.