Showing the track of Cook's 'Endeavour' voyage
By ANONYMOUS, after MOLL, Herman , 1775
£9,000
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A Correct Globe with the new Discoveries [and] A Correct Globe with ye New Constelations of Dr. Halley &c.

Globes
  • Author: ANONYMOUS, after MOLL, Herman
  • Publication place: [London
  • Publication date: c1775].
  • Physical description: Globe, 12 hand-coloured engraved paper gores, clipped at 70 degrees latitude, with two polar calottes, over a papier mâché and plaster sphere, housed within original shagreen over paste-board clamshell case, rim painted red, with hook and eye, lined with two sets of 12 hand-coloured engraved celestial gores, clipped at 70 degrees declination, varnished. Globe with a crack extrending from the south pole in two directions to the southern tip of Africa and just south of New Zealand, other small areas of abrasion.
  • Dimensions: Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inches).
  • Inventory reference: 15661

Notes

Biography
A firm attribution for the maker of this globe has proven elusive. However, it is now recognised to have been at least designed after the work of the globemaker Herman Moll. Herman Moll (?1654-1732) moved to London from Germany or the Low Countries, sometime before 1678. His career in London would span some 60 years and see him move from a jobbing engraver to a successful publisher of maps and atlases. He was part of the intellectual circle that gathered at Jonathan’s Coffee House, counting Robert Hooke, Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift amongst his acquaintance. Moll even provided a map for Defoe’s work ‘Robinson Crusoe’ showing the track of Crusoe’s supposed voyage, and is mentioned by Lemuel Gulliver in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’.

This globe was formerly attributed to George Adams Snr. on the basis that it appeared in one of his instruments. However, it also appears in the instruments of several other publishers, which makes this unlikely.

Geography
The tracks of Dampier’s voyage have been partially erased and overlaid with the track of the first voyage of Captain James Cook (incorrectly dated “Cook’s Track 1760”), and the geography of Australasia adjusted accordingly, including the labelling of Cook Strait. It also adds the label “North.n Ocean” to the North Pole, although this is a preference of the cartographer rather than any new information, as the area was still largely unexplored.

Astronomy
The celestial cartography lines the inside of the case, and the ecliptic is graduated and provided with the signs of the zodiac. The polar circles and tropics are drawn but not named. A magnitude table (1-6) sits below Ursa Major. The 48 Ptolemaic constellations are marked along with four non-Ptolemaic constellations. Only five of the 12 southern Plancian constellations are named, and Scutum is not labelled among the Hevelian constellations.

Bibliography

  1. Dekker GLB0196
  2. for Moll’s globe see Dekker GLB0197
  3. Lamb, Collins and Schmidt 5.4
  4. Sumira 21
  5. for reference see Worms and Baynton-Williams, pp.456-458.
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