Benjamin Martin, Successor to John Senex
18th Century British Celestial Table Globe

This item is sold. It has been placed here in our online archives as a service for researchers and collectors.

Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe
Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe
Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe
Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe
Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe Martin 12-Inch Celestial Table Globe
Benjamin Martin (1704/05-1782) (as successor to John Senex)
12-Inch Celestial Table Globe
Fleet Street, London: c. 1757-1770s
Oak turned stand
17 inches high; 17 inches diameter overall
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.

The celestial globe is surmounted by a brass hour circle, within a calibrated full brass meridian. It is on a turned oak stand in the Dutch Baroque taste having four circular tapering legs joined by a round turned platter on a rectangular x-form stretcher and ending in bun feet, the horizon band with an engraved paper calendar and zodiac.

The globe is comprised of hand-colored engraved gores laid to the ecliptic poles, with the axis through the celestial poles. The constellations are elegantly depicted in the Renaissance/Baroque taste as mythical figures and beasts and as scientific instruments. Stars are shown to six orders of magnitude. The background is cream-colored; the constellations are in faded tones of pink, greyish blue, olive, etc.

Benjamin Martin, the manufacturer of this celestial globe, was a prominent globe and scientific instrument maker, lecturer, and author. In 1757, he acquired the globe trade of the renowned globe maker James Ferguson, who two years earlier, in 1755, had acquired copper plates for printing globe gores from the estate of John Senex, the father of British globe making during the Age of Enlightenment. In the cartouche of the offered celestial globe, Martin credits Senex, with no mention of Ferguson.

There are several similar globes to this celestial globe described in the standard reference works on antique globes (see References below). The National Maritime Museum (U.K.) has a pair of Martin/Senex globes on similar stands, one dated as after 1757 and the other c. 1770. The World in Your Hands exhibit at Christie’s in 1994 (private collection of Rudolf Schmidt of Austria) included a Martin/Senex pair, dated as c. 1756.Modelle der Welt, a comprehensive study of globes in Austrian collections, shows a pair of Ferguson/Senex globes consisting of a terrestrial and celestial globe of the same size and stand as the celestial globe offered here and dated c. 1756; apparently Martin continued using the stand design as well as the modified gores. Read more about Ferguson and Senex in our Guide to Globe Makers.

Rococo Cartouche: A New Celestial/ GLOBE/ Wheron the STARS are Carefully/ laid down from the Correct/ Observations/ of Mr. Hevelius, Dr. Halley & c./ By JNO SENEX F.R.S./ Now made & sold with very considerable/ Improvements BY B. MARTIN/ in Fleet Street

References:

Allmayer-Beck, Peter E., ed. Modelle der Welt: Erd-und Himmelsgloben -- Kulturerbe aus oesterreichischen Sammlungen. [Models Of The World: Terrestrial And Celestial Globes -- Cultural Inheritance from Austrian Collections.] Vienna: Bibliophile Edition/Christian Brandstaetter Verlagsgesellschaft, 1997. p. 160.

Dekker, Elly. Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum. Oxford University Press, New York: 1999. GLB0080, pp. 409-411.

Lamb, Tom and Collins, Jeremy. The World in Your Hands: An Exhibition of Globes and Planetaria. London: Christie's, 1994. Item 4.57. p. 61.