print;
map;
broadside
- Museum number
- 2000,0521.46
- Description
-
A map of the celestial globe with comet. 1618
Engraving illuminated in watercolour and gold
- Production date
- 1618
- Dimensions
-
Height: 414 millimetres
-
Width: 505 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit: E. Zinner, 'Geschichte und Bibliographie d.astronom. Literatur i. Deutschland ... d. Renaissance' Leipzig, 1941, no. 4731(catalogue of comet publications in BL)
Label text for Apocalypse exhibition, 1999: 'Three comets were recorded in 1618; judging from the large quantity of pamphlets on the subject published that year, the one represented here was particularly impressive. It was visible across Europe from the end of November 1618 until 21 January, 1619. The high quality of the engraving with its elaborate colouring is exceptional for a broadsheet, and indicates that it was produced for a collectors' market. Comets were traditionally viewed as bad omens, and contemporaries associated such celestial phenomena with the war which broke out in Europe in 1618, later known as the Thirty Years War'.
Watermark: gothic P with a side mark 4 and pp attached. (See Heawood, 3052-3054, Cologne 1608)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2013 Sep-Oct, BM, Light in Art and Science, Camden School for Girls
- Acquisition date
- 2000
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2000,0521.46
