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Lot Essay
Given his name is so well-known as a globe-maker, surprisingly little appears to be recorded definitively about Georg Matthäus Seutter (Augsburg 1678 - 1757).
It is known that Seutter switched professions from working in his maternal grandfather's brewery to training as a cartographer and engraver with Johann Baptista Homann in Nuremburg, and that in 1707 he established himself as a cartographer, geographer and globe-maker in Augsburg. His wide variety of maps, city plans and other charts survive in great numbers, although his fine globes are considerably more scarce; it is quite possible that he concentrated more on maps than globes to minimise direct competition with the leading globe-maker of the time, Nuremburg-based Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750). It is agreed that Seutter issued his first pair of globes, with a diameter of 20 cm. (8 in.) -of which this is an example of the celestial- in around 1710.
Others of his globes recorded include celestial spheres of 64 cm. and 160 cm. diameter.
Seutter held the title of Kaiserlicher Geograph (Imperial Geographer) for the two years before his death as a reward for the publication of his Grossen Atlas dedicated to Emperor Charles VI. He was initially succeeded by his son Albrecht Carl and by his son-in-law Tobias Konrad Lotter, and subsequently by Mattäus Albrecht Lotter (1741-1810), the son of Tobias.
Seutter's celestial cartography is of interest as he included a number of uncommon constellations: Rhombus, Robur Carolinum, Lilium, Sceptrum Regale and the 'rivers' Jordanus and Tigris. Although from various different sources (Plancius, Habrecht II, Pardies, Halley and Royer) Seutter was the first to show all these new constellations together.
It is known that Seutter switched professions from working in his maternal grandfather's brewery to training as a cartographer and engraver with Johann Baptista Homann in Nuremburg, and that in 1707 he established himself as a cartographer, geographer and globe-maker in Augsburg. His wide variety of maps, city plans and other charts survive in great numbers, although his fine globes are considerably more scarce; it is quite possible that he concentrated more on maps than globes to minimise direct competition with the leading globe-maker of the time, Nuremburg-based Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750). It is agreed that Seutter issued his first pair of globes, with a diameter of 20 cm. (8 in.) -of which this is an example of the celestial- in around 1710.
Others of his globes recorded include celestial spheres of 64 cm. and 160 cm. diameter.
Seutter held the title of Kaiserlicher Geograph (Imperial Geographer) for the two years before his death as a reward for the publication of his Grossen Atlas dedicated to Emperor Charles VI. He was initially succeeded by his son Albrecht Carl and by his son-in-law Tobias Konrad Lotter, and subsequently by Mattäus Albrecht Lotter (1741-1810), the son of Tobias.
Seutter's celestial cartography is of interest as he included a number of uncommon constellations: Rhombus, Robur Carolinum, Lilium, Sceptrum Regale and the 'rivers' Jordanus and Tigris. Although from various different sources (Plancius, Habrecht II, Pardies, Halley and Royer) Seutter was the first to show all these new constellations together.