Accession No

0809

Brief Description

Elton’s transparent orrery, English, c. 1810

Origin

England; London

Maker

Elton, Thomas

Class

astronomy; demonstration

Earliest Date

1810

Latest Date

1810

Inscription Date

Material

wood (beech?) metal (brass, steel); paper; glass; ivory

Dimensions

breadth 204mm; depth 85mm; height 276mm

Special Collection

Robert Whipple collection

Provenance

Purchased from H.M. Fletcher, Enfield, England, on 26/05/1936.

Inscription

‘TO
DEANE F. WALKER, ESQ.
HIMSELF AND FAMILY
HAVING
BY THEIR LECTURES
DIFFUSED A GENERAL TASTE FOR
THE SUBLIME SCIENCE
OF
Astronomy
ELTON’s
TRANSPARENT ORRERY,
IS,
WITH HIS PERMISSION,
DEDICATED,
AS
A SMALL TRIBUTE
OF RESPECT,
BY HIS OBEDIENT
HUMBLE SERVANTS,
THE PUBLISHERS.
Princes Street, Cavendish Square.’ (paper label on inside of back panel)
‘Mr. Houseman,
No 1 Greek Street’ (label on side of box inside)

Description Notes

Elton’s transparent orrery, English, c. 1810. Wooden rectangular box (? beech). Glazed front cover; hinged at one side with hook fastening the other. Wooden back slides out. Stands on 4 brass lion’s feet; cast brass circular motifs on each front corner. 2 handles with ivory knobs operate rollers inside box. Paper roll of illustrations of solar system moves from one roller to the other. Including: general illustration of the solar system (showing Uranus with 6 other planets and comet), Eclipses of the sun and moon; Phases of the moon; configuration of the constellation of Orion; signs of the Zodiac; Annual rotation of the earth; view of the Eastern hemisphere of the Earth. All printed in black and white with hand colouring. Designed for rear illumination.

Complete.

References

Events

Description
Orrery
First made in about 1713, orrerys modelled the motions of the earth, moon and sun and sometimes other planets and satellites too. They illustrate the sun centred Copernican cosmology.

Grand orrerys were actually pieces of furniture. They tended to be very decorative and very large (although smaller versions were designed to be portable). This is illustrative of the fact that astronomy was commonly done by polite society, and that orrerys were used for entertainment as well as education.

From display label:

One of the hand-painted illustrations on this scrolling orrery not only displays the phases of the moon, but also visually explains how and why they occur as the moon orbits the Earth. This model is a design by Adam Walker, a lecturer on popular astronomy, who would have displayed it, backlit, in a darkened room to illustrate his lectures in venues such as the Haymarket Theatre in London.
18/10/2002
Created by: Saffron Clackson on 18/10/2002

FM:40163