Stock Id :22108

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Unusual pair of celestial charts with Christian iconography

CELLARIUS, Andreas.

Coeli Stellati Christiani Haemisphaerium Posterius. [&] Coeli Stellati Christiani Haemisphaerium Prius.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708. Original colour with additions, including gold highlights. Two plates, each 440 x 515mm.

A few small repairs to verdigris weaknesses.,

A beautiful pair of celestial charts of the constellations, depicting them not in the traditional Greco-Roman figures but in Christian imagery as envisaged by Julius Schiller in 1627 in an attempt to make the iconography of the stars more relevant to his day. Thus the Zodiac is represented by the Twelve Apostles and Pegasus has become Gabriel. All the figures are shown face on, because Schiller thought it would be an indignity to have them show their backsides. His changes caused him often to be ridiculed and did not catch on, but when they were published his charts were the most accurate available.

These charts were engraved by Jan van Loon and published in the 'Atlas Coelestis; seu Harmonia Macrocosmica', the only celestial atlas to be produced in the Netherlands before the nineteenth century. It was a compilation of maps of the Ptolemaic universe and the more modern theories of Copernicus and Brahe, and remains the finest and most highly decorative celestial atlas ever produced.
The atlas was originally published by Jan Jansson in 1660: this pair comea from Schenk & Valk's reissue.

KOEMAN: Cel 3.
Stock ID : 22108

£8,500

£8,500

Return To Listing

INDEX

Stock Id :22108

Download Image

Unusual pair of celestial charts with Christian iconography

CELLARIUS, Andreas.

Coeli Stellati Christiani Haemisphaerium Posterius. [&] Coeli Stellati Christiani Haemisphaerium Prius.
Amsterdam, Schenk & Valk, 1708. Original colour with additions, including gold highlights. Two plates, each 440 x 515mm.

A few small repairs to verdigris weaknesses.,

A beautiful pair of celestial charts of the constellations, depicting them not in the traditional Greco-Roman figures but in Christian imagery as envisaged by Julius Schiller in 1627 in an attempt to make the iconography of the stars more relevant to his day. Thus the Zodiac is represented by the Twelve Apostles and Pegasus has become Gabriel. All the figures are shown face on, because Schiller thought it would be an indignity to have them show their backsides. His changes caused him often to be ridiculed and did not catch on, but when they were published his charts were the most accurate available.

These charts were engraved by Jan van Loon and published in the 'Atlas Coelestis; seu Harmonia Macrocosmica', the only celestial atlas to be produced in the Netherlands before the nineteenth century. It was a compilation of maps of the Ptolemaic universe and the more modern theories of Copernicus and Brahe, and remains the finest and most highly decorative celestial atlas ever produced.
The atlas was originally published by Jan Jansson in 1660: this pair comea from Schenk & Valk's reissue.

KOEMAN: Cel 3.
Stock ID : 22108

£8,500

£8,500

Return To Listing