Accession No
3738
Brief Description
trade card advertisement for Edmund Culpeper, English, 1710 (c)
Origin
England; London; Middle-Moore-Fields [aka Moorfields]; the Cross-Daggers
Maker
Culpeper, Edmund
Class
ephemera; prints
Earliest Date
1700
Latest Date
1731
Inscription Date
Material
paper
Dimensions
height 427mm; breadth 299mm (including frame)
Special Collection
Heywood collection
Provenance
Purchased from Anthony Turner, 1990. From Harold Heywood Collection (08/1973).
Inscription
‘At the Old Mathematical -Shop, the Cross-Daggers in Middle-Moore-Fields,
are Made and Sold by E. Culpeper....’
Description Notes
print, trade card advertisement for Edmund Culpeper, English, 1710 (c).
Small sheet printed on one side; top half covered with a crossed daggers design surrounded by drawings of various instruments. Text (advertising the shop) fills the rest of the page. Torn on left-hand side. Mounted and framed.
Condition: fair; complete.
References
Events
Description
This trade card, for the London-based instrument maker Edmund Culpeper, shows a wide range of scientific instruments for sale. This is significant, because until Culpeper instrument makers were highly-specialised, focusing on either mathematical, optical or 'philosophical' instruments. Culpeper made anything his customers asked for, often sub-contracting parts of instruments to other, more specialist craftsmen.
Had his workshop been in the City of London Culpeper would not have been able to do this, because the City was closely controlled by the Guild system. But Culpeper set up shop in Moorfields, just outside the City, and set about revolutionising the way instruments were made and sold.
16/09/2025
Created by: Hannah Price on 16/09/2025
FM:40935
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