Wright’s new improved terrestrial globe,

on which the Latitudes and Longitudes of Places are Carefully laid down, with all the New Discoveries Made by the late CAPT. COOK and other current NAVIGATORS to the Present Time. London : William Bardin, 1782.

Terrestrial globe, 9 inches in diameter, engraved gores and two polar calottes with original hand colouring over papier mache base, graduated equator, ecliptic and Greenwich meridian, the oceans with an analemma, ocean currents, monsoons and showing the tracks of numerous explorers; hand-engraved calibrated brass meridian ring, two movable brass polar arrows, engraved calendrical paper horizon ring with zodiac (in facsimile) laid on wood, supported on the original stand of four turned wooden legs united with cross-stretchers. A fine example with a rich and warm patina, some natural old discolouration due to the glue used of the period, recent lacquer expertly applied for conservation.

A fine eighteenth-century globe which shows the tracks of Cook’s three voyages, the place of his death in Hawaii only four years prior noted with detail. The voyages of Clipperton and Anson are also marked. The island of Tasmania is joined to the mainland of New Holland, and the Antarctic region is described as being ‘insurmountable fields & vast mountains of ice’.

Bardin’s 9 inch terrestrial globe was originally available for purchase by subscribers to the Geographical Magazine. Upon a second payment a celestial globe was also available. Bardin also supplied globes for other publishers, in this case, Wright. Gabriel Wright, an apprentice to Benjamin Martin, began working with the globe-maker William Bardin in around 1782.

“The Bardin family was among the greatest globe makers in London from the late eighteenth through the early nineteenth century. The patriarch of the family, William Bardin (d.1798), began globe production in the 1780s.

The decorative labels on the globes claim that the globes are improved, and in a book published in 1783 Wright explains the improvements. His innovation was to print hour circles into the globes around the poles, to print the hours around the equator, and to place small brass pointers between the globe surface and the meridian ring. This allowed the globes, without hindrance of a brass hour circle attached to the meridian ring, to be inserted within their stands so that ‘the new discoveries, tracks &c. may be clearly traced by the eye over all parts of the globe in a manner more conspicuous than maps will admit of’. Wright updated the cartography and added the routes of Captain James Cook’s voyages of exploration between 1769 and 1779, along with the location where Cook was killed in Hawaii.

The Globes were produced by William Bardin as a promotional gift for William Frederick Martyn’s The Geographical Magazine, or a New, Copious, Compleat and Universal System of Geography, which Harrison published in parts beginning January 1, 1782. Subscribers were offered a pair of globes free. The price of the magazine was 2 shillings 6 pence per month. After buying the first 20 editions readers could acquire a terrestrial globe, and after the 40th edition they could claim its partner, the celestial globe.” – State Library of New South Wales website (http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/blogs/pair-desktop-globes-1783).

Eighteenth-century globes in such good condition are rare in the market.

References:

SUMIRA, Sylvia. The art and history of globes. London : The British Library, 2014, pp. 156 – 159 (illustrated).

DEKKER, Elly, et al. Globes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Globes and Armillary Spheres in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. London: Oxford University Press and the National Maritime Museum, 1999, pp. 262-263

DEKKER, Elly and van der Krogt, Peter. Globes from the Western World. London: Zwemmer, 1993.  pp. 114-116.

National Maritime Museum [UK].  http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/19856.html