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Lot Essay
Supported by ormolu hands and fitted with silvered meridian rings, these highly-unusual globes are a combination of scientific instruments popular in the age of the Enlightenment and sumptuous objets de luxe characteristic of the collecting of wealthy amateurs of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Being dedicated and presented to two dauphins of France, Louis Ferdinand (1729-1765), son of Louis XV in 1750 and Louis-Auguste, later Louis XVI, in 1774, these works appealed to patrons with an interest in both history and the sciences. The use of gilt and silvered metals, coupled with a particularly inventive design, indicates that these globes were destined for a lavish interior inhabited by a discerning collector.
THE EUGENE ROUSSEL COLLECTION OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS
These globes were highlights of the Roussel collection of scientific instruments, and were recorded in inventories and publications with great care. Eugène Roussel (1833-1894) was a celebrated enthusiast of antique scientific instruments dating from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Roussel had a vast collection and was considered the foremost collector in the field. In fact, in 1880 the famed art critic Edmond Bonnaffé praised him and his collection to great extent in the magazine L’Art, see E. Bonnaffé, “A propos d’une collection d’instruments de mathématiques,” L’Art, Revue hebdomadaire illustrée, Paris and London, Vol. III, 1880, pp. 134-140. These unique globes were specifically mentioned by Bonnaffé on page 139. At this time the collection comprised as many as four hundred pieces.
Following Roussel’s death, his wife Marguerite Moreau-Chaslon inherited his collection, which was eventually offered at auction in its entirety on 13-15 March 1911 at the Hôtel Drouot. Pieces from the collection have subsequently entered such distinguished museum collections as those of the Deutsches Museum, Munich, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Adler Planetarium, The globes were listed as lot 54 in the sale and sold for 9,100 francs- their rarity was further stressed by including a photograph of them in the printed auction catalogue. The globes again appear in an unnamed interior in the 1930s, where they sit on the fireplace mantel flanking what appears to be an ancient Roman head of a youth; clearly the home of a seasoned collector with significant means.
JEAN-LOUIS-JACQUES BARADELLE
Jean-Louis-Jacques Baradelle (d. after 1794) established his workshop called A l’observatoire circa 1740 on the quai de l’Horloge-de-Palais, where he produced globes, instruments of navigation and other scientific accoutrements. His globes were sought-after by learned scientists, merchants, and enthusiastic amateurs at a time when the demand for scientific instruments increased rapidly. The eighteenth century saw the golden age of French colonization of overseas territories, and globes and maps became highly desirable as scientific instruments and decoration for private libraries and studies. The reason why the terrestrial globe in this pair is dated almost 25 years after the celestial one is probably due to the centuries-old practice of acquiring new globes and maps when new geographical discoveries were made. Unlike the sky, which had been fully explored and mapped to the limits of eighteenth-century astronomy, new lands, such as the coasts of Alaska and regions of Australasia, were still being discovered in the second half of the 1700s. Baradelle was eager to satisfy this demand and manufactured constantly updated globes of all sizes from modest small table globes for the bourgeois homes to large and elaborately-decorated pieces for aristocratic patrons and institutions where they were used for the elementary needs of geographical and astronomical studies. Well-known examples of Baradelle's work include two similar pairs of terrestrial and celestial globes in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France that bear a nearly identical dedication to the Dauphin as the present pair, and date from circa 1740-50. A protractor with the same silvered-metal finish as the dials of these globes, illustrated here, signed 'Baradelle AParis' and with related numbering system, dated to 1740, is in the Louvre Museum (acc. no. OA 10796).
THE EUGENE ROUSSEL COLLECTION OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS
These globes were highlights of the Roussel collection of scientific instruments, and were recorded in inventories and publications with great care. Eugène Roussel (1833-1894) was a celebrated enthusiast of antique scientific instruments dating from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Roussel had a vast collection and was considered the foremost collector in the field. In fact, in 1880 the famed art critic Edmond Bonnaffé praised him and his collection to great extent in the magazine L’Art, see E. Bonnaffé, “A propos d’une collection d’instruments de mathématiques,” L’Art, Revue hebdomadaire illustrée, Paris and London, Vol. III, 1880, pp. 134-140. These unique globes were specifically mentioned by Bonnaffé on page 139. At this time the collection comprised as many as four hundred pieces.
Following Roussel’s death, his wife Marguerite Moreau-Chaslon inherited his collection, which was eventually offered at auction in its entirety on 13-15 March 1911 at the Hôtel Drouot. Pieces from the collection have subsequently entered such distinguished museum collections as those of the Deutsches Museum, Munich, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Adler Planetarium, The globes were listed as lot 54 in the sale and sold for 9,100 francs- their rarity was further stressed by including a photograph of them in the printed auction catalogue. The globes again appear in an unnamed interior in the 1930s, where they sit on the fireplace mantel flanking what appears to be an ancient Roman head of a youth; clearly the home of a seasoned collector with significant means.
JEAN-LOUIS-JACQUES BARADELLE
Jean-Louis-Jacques Baradelle (d. after 1794) established his workshop called A l’observatoire circa 1740 on the quai de l’Horloge-de-Palais, where he produced globes, instruments of navigation and other scientific accoutrements. His globes were sought-after by learned scientists, merchants, and enthusiastic amateurs at a time when the demand for scientific instruments increased rapidly. The eighteenth century saw the golden age of French colonization of overseas territories, and globes and maps became highly desirable as scientific instruments and decoration for private libraries and studies. The reason why the terrestrial globe in this pair is dated almost 25 years after the celestial one is probably due to the centuries-old practice of acquiring new globes and maps when new geographical discoveries were made. Unlike the sky, which had been fully explored and mapped to the limits of eighteenth-century astronomy, new lands, such as the coasts of Alaska and regions of Australasia, were still being discovered in the second half of the 1700s. Baradelle was eager to satisfy this demand and manufactured constantly updated globes of all sizes from modest small table globes for the bourgeois homes to large and elaborately-decorated pieces for aristocratic patrons and institutions where they were used for the elementary needs of geographical and astronomical studies. Well-known examples of Baradelle's work include two similar pairs of terrestrial and celestial globes in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France that bear a nearly identical dedication to the Dauphin as the present pair, and date from circa 1740-50. A protractor with the same silvered-metal finish as the dials of these globes, illustrated here, signed 'Baradelle AParis' and with related numbering system, dated to 1740, is in the Louvre Museum (acc. no. OA 10796).