Rare 19th Century Charles Dien Celestial Table Globe.

DIEN, Charles.

$6,200.00

Item Number: 97888

Paris: Sold by W. & S. Jones, c. 1845.

Rare mid-19th century Charles Dien celestial table globe. The globe measures 11.5 inches in diameter with an engraved longitude ring and brass latitude ring. Mounted on brass and mahogany stand. The globe contains twelve bodies including the sun and earth with its moon. The entire piece measures 18 inches in height. French astronomer and cosmographer Charles Dien published highly detailed atlases, works on astronomy, and both celestial and terrestrial globes in Paris throughout the 1840s and 1850s. Dien was also renowned for the sophisticated engravings he designed for the many books produced by his father’s publishing house Delamarche. In very good condition with a few areas rubbed and slight bend in the longitude ring. Rare and desirable.

The sphericity of the Earth was established by Greek astronomers in the 3rd century BC, with the earliest terrestrial globe appearing during that period. The earliest known globe was constructed by Crates of Mallus in Cilicia (now Çukurova in modern-day Turkey) in the mid-2nd century B.C.E. Now known as the Erdapfel, the earliest extant terrestrial globe was produced in 1492 by German mapmaker, navigator, and merchant Martin Behaim in Nuremberg, Germany. Traditionally, globes were manufactured by gluing a printed paper map onto a sphere, often made from wood.