| John & William Cary — Cary’s New and Improved Celestial Globe and Cary’s New Terrestrial Globe |
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Cary’s New and Improved Celestial Globe and Cary’s New Terrestrial Globe |
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Cary’s New and Improved Celestial Globe and Cary’s New Terrestrial Globe Published: London 1799 and 1825, respectively. Dimensions: Height (in stand) 47 in.; diameter 271/4 in. Globes of the Late Georgian Period The Cary family firm was regarded as England’s leading globe publishers from the early 1790s to its closure in 1850. It was run by brothers John and William Cary. John Cary (c. 1754-1835) was the engraver and businessman, while William Cary (c. 1760-1825) specialized in making mathematical instruments. Featured are two pairs of globe pairs by John and William Cary. The first and larger of the pair contain a celestial and terrestrial globe published in 1799 and 1825, respectively. Each globe is surmounted by brass hour disc at the North Pole, in a full graduated brass meridian, the horizon -- edged with cross banded veneer - with hand-colored engraved paper ring showing degrees of amplitude and azimuth, compass directions, days and months of the year, names of the signs of the zodiac, and an equation of time. The globes are each supported by four incised mahogany quadrants joined to the horizon between pairs of ogee brackets, raised on a mahogany tripod stand with ring and baluster turned central standard, the splayed in-swept legs having ebonized diamond-form inlays, joined by compass stretcher with glazed round wooden compass case enclosing a paper compass card and magnetized metal needle, ending in spade feet on brass casters. The terrestrial globe is mapped with detailed cartography, geographical entities in tones of cream, olive, and faded pink, with thick olive and thin pink outlining, and oceans in olive tones. Region west of Mississippi shown, from north to south, as "Missouri Ter.," "Great Desert," and Mexico. Southwest shown as "Unexplored Countries," and north of that as "Shoshones or Snake Ind." California shown as "New Albion," a name given to a cove on the Pacific coast by Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to sail around the world (1577-1580). Information from important exploratory voyages of the late eighteenth century was incorporated into the cartography of this globe. Noted on the cartouche are Captain James Cook's round-the-world voyages (1768-1780). Also noted are the discoveries of Cook's protégé Captain George Vancouver, sent by the British to map the northwest Pacific coast of North America, who named over 200 places and proved that the mythical "Northwest Passage" did not exist. The globe draws upon the mapping of the mainland Asian coast, then known as Tartary, by another admirer of Cook, the French admiral Jean-François de Galaup, Count de la Perouse (1741-88). Sent by the French government to collect scientific data, he led an expedition to the North American, South American and Asian coasts of the Pacific, and the islands of the South Pacific, on a voyage beginning in 1785. In 1788, he sent his journals and letters to Europe on a British ship, and shortly thereafter disappeared in a shipwreck. The celestial globe is mapped with constellations elegantly depicted by mythical figures and scientific instruments in the Baroque taste, the zodiac belt within graph-form grid, the stars shown in a chart in successive orders of magnitude, together with planetary nebulae and clusters. The constellations are in tones of pink, grey, browns, and olive against a cream-colored background. An example of the celestial globe, same date and size, is in the collection of the Osterreichisches Staatsarchiv in Vienna, Austria (Allmayer-Beck). The second featured globe pair consists of a terrestrial and celestial globe both published in 1800. Like the previously described pair, both show similar cartographic delineations. Each globe is held within a calendar ring upheld by four supports, raised on turned pedestals with three splayed legs joined by a stretcher with a compass to the center. |
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