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Lot 643

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A large pair of library globes, terrestrial and celestial.

HONDIUS, Jodocus the Younger

€ 120.000 / 150.000

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Lot description

Amsterdam, Johannes Janssonius, 1623/1648

Each globe with 12 copper engraved gores on a plaster sphere, diam. 44 cm, clipped at a latitude of 13° for the terrestrial globe and at a declination of 23° for the celestial globe. The terrestrial globe has also 2 polar calottes. Each globe coloured and recently varnished with a UV-protective varnish (terrestrial globe: sm. lacunae and occ. tears mostly in the open ocean or along the edges of the gores expertly and unobtrusively repaired and retouched with ink and watercolour; celestial globe: a few constellations retouched in an earlier restauration; repairs to the underlying plaster-covered cores).

Each globe supported in a fully engraved and graduated brass meridian ring. Mounted in a wooden horizon ring, covered with printed paper in facsimile figuring a zodiacal grid and a calendar with the names of the months in Latin. New oak stands in 17th-c. style based on those of the set at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, overall height and width 65 x 60 cm, consisting out of 4 turned baluster supports above a circular moulded base with cross-stretcher and bun feet.

"Many have published globes: but one may truly say that up until now none has been published that contains everything so elegantly!" With these words Johannes Janssonius (ca. 1588-1664) addresses himself to the reader in the 'Lectori meo'-cartouche of this rare set of grand globes.
Most globes published by J. Janssonius were unmodified re-issues from existing copperplates by Pieter van den Keere. This changed in 1621 when he published a first 15,3 cm globe (J/G 1) engraved by Abraham Goos (b. 1589). Afterwards he started to cooperate with his brother-in-law Jodocus Hondius the younger on the production of our pair of 44 cm globes, also engraved by A. Goos and with Adriaan Metius as author of the celestial globe. As a matter of fact, these globes are not only for Janssonius but also for J. Hondius a rare original work given that globes with Hondius's imprint are usually re-issues of globes by his father Jodocus the Older. After the death of Jodocus the Younger in 1629, Janssonius owned the new copperplates and published two other states in 1632 and 1648.
We have:
1. The terrestrial globe in its first state (1623), but in a unique fourth variant. Similar to Janssonius' earliest variants the small, oval imprint cartouche is blank. But it has Janssonius's 1623 dedication to the Dutch West India Company (West-Indische Compagnie, i.e. WIC): "To the most noble, splendid, skilful and prudent lords, the lords curators of the West Indian Company" as one can read in a 2nd oval cartouche, and is therefore only the 2nd copy known as such. Dedicating the globes in 1623 to the WIC is a strategic and promotional move since only then was substantial funding arranged for the company of Dutch merchants that received a charter for a trade monopoly in the Dutch West Indies in 1621, after the Twelve Years' Truce between Habsburg Spain, ruler of the Southern Netherlands, and the Dutch Republic. By the time the globes were published in 1623 the WIC had 15 ships to carry trade and to ply the west African coast and Brazil.
Also remarkable are the words "The Bay where Hudson did winter" written in the Hudson Bay. Henry Hudson (1560/70-ca. 1611) was chosen by merchants of the Dutch East India Company in the Netherlands to find an easterly passage to Asia. As a matter of fact, Jodocus Hondius was involved in Hudson's 1609 expedition. When Hudson's ship entered Hudson Bay in 1610, it was thought that the ship had finally found the Northwest Passage through the continent. Referring to Hudson on the globe turns it into the keeper of a treasured family memory!
With cartography in Latin, Dutch ("Gebroken Landt", "Hoek der Begeerte", "Zeven Broeders", etc.) and English ("The hand of good fortun", "The Catt's chane", etc.).
2. The celestial globe in its second state, dated 1648, of which only 2 or 3 copies are preserved. In the constellation Cassiopeia it includes the supernova of 1572 that is often called 'Tycho's supernova', because of Tycho Brahe's published observations about it. It is one of eight supernovae visible to the naked eye in historical records.
Fine pair with neat and strong impression, delicately coloured and well preserved!
According to van der Krogt
"No specimen of this pair has been preserved in the Netherlands."
Ref. Van der Krogt, P.- Old globes in the Netherlands, pp. 21, 162. - van der Krogt, P. Globi Neerlandici, HON VI, pp. 484-486. - Dekker, p. 369. - Wiechen, P. - Vademecum van de Oost- en West-Indische compagnie, pp. 349-351.
Prov. Duke of Luynes, Château de Dampierre (Sotheby's, Bibliothèque des ducs de Luynes, Château de Dampierre, seconde partie, 22 october 2013, lot 679).

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A large pair of library globes, terrestrial and celestial.

Lot 643

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