Accession No

6211

Brief Description

8-inch globe of the planet Mars, after the maps of Percival Lowell, by Ingeborg Brun, Denmark, 1913

Origin

Denmark

Maker

Brun, Ingeborg

Class

astronomy; demonstration

Earliest Date

1913

Latest Date

1913

Inscription Date

1913

Material

wood (mahogany?); metal (brass); plaster

Dimensions

height 420mm; maximum width 220mm; diameter of base 185mm

Special Collection

Provenance

Purchased from Trevor Waterman, Trevor Philip & Sons Ltd, 75A, Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 6NP on or before 04/02/2008. Purchased with the aid of a grant from the PRISM fund.

Inscription

[on South Pole region of the globe]
MARS
efter Lowells Planiglob
(ca. 1905.)

[hand written note on piece of paper pasted to underside of the globe’s base]:
Denne Globus er tegnet væsentlig efter Lowells Planiglob af 1905, hvor
Nordpolen havde Sommer. Dog har jeg tilføjet en del Kanaler efter hans
tidligere Planiglober samt nogle faa fra Oppositionen 1909, da Sydpolen
havde Sommer. IB. 1913. delin
[translation of the above - by Signe Nipper Nielson, graduate student in the HPS department and Danish national, Feb. 2008]:
“This globe is essentially drawn from (or mostly from) Lowell's Planiglobe [cataloguer’s note: planiglob means 'a map of an earthly or celestial hemisphere'] from 1905, when the North Pole had summer. However, I have added a number of canals [drawn] from his previous planiglobes together with a few from the opposition in 1909, when the South Pole had summer. IB. 1913. delin [cataloguer’s note: ’delin’ = an abbreviation for delineavit [”he drew”], which is commonly written after the signature on a drawing or on graphics to indicate that the signatory is the sole artist.]

Description Notes

8-inch globe of the planet Mars, after the maps of Percival Lowell, by Ingeborg Brun, Denmark, 1913

Wooden sphere with plaster coating below hand-painted martian cartography in multiple colours. The surface of the planet is a pale yellowy flesh colour (may have faded from a more pronounced pinkish colour) with a large white region for the South Pole (depicted at the TOP of the globe due to image inversion of telescopes). The Martian surface is also marked with several large regions of green (depicting areas of vegetation) and a complex network of interconnecting black lines. These are the vegetation-lined canals Lowell claimed to have observed and famously promoted with his maps, published in 1905. The black circles found at intersections of the canals are ‘oases’. Many of the areas of vegetation, canals and oases are labelled with the names given to them by Lowell. around the ring formed by the join of the edge of the South Pole with the Martian surface below are longitudinal angle marks, in 90o separations.

The globe is supported by a brass half-meridian ring, which contains an engraved ruler scale in inches. This ring stands on an ebonized black wooden base. A hand written note by Brun is pasted to the underside of the base (see inscription field).

Condition: Fair. The paint work is extensively crazed, and some small pieces of the surface have broken away and are missing. There is a small crack in the wood and plaster at the top of the globe, where it meets the supporting ring. The supporting ring is not well attached to the base, leading the globe to wobble when it is rotated.

References

Events