Lot 421: Eimmart, Georg Christoph. 1638-1705. [Terrestrial and Celestial gores for a pair of 30 cm diameter globes.] Nuremberg: Terrestrial dated 1705; [Celestial c.1704].

Eimmart, Georg Christoph. 1638-1705.
[Terrestrial and Celestial gores for a pair of 30 cm diameter globes.] Nuremberg: Terrestrial dated 1705; [Celestial c.1704]. A complete set of gores for a pair of 30 cm (12 inch) globes, comprising 4 sheets, each approximately 570 x 660 mm, each sheet with 4 engraved parts, each part with 3 gores, making up two globes each of 24 gores. The terrestrial gores numbering 24, both North and South, all hand-colored, with a dedicatory cartouche signed and dated by Eimmart, and with the two polar calottes on the final sheet; the celestial similarly arranged with 24 gores, the celestial figures uncolored, but with the stars colored in yellow, and with the two polar calottes, the dedicatory cartouche describing the star configurations as taken from Hevelius, with star positions as of 1700. The sheets with full deckle edges, some very light staining to margins. Bound in modern calf.Eimmart was born in Regensburg, studied in Altdorf and in Jena, and from 1660 onwards moved to Nuremberg, to become the Assistant Director of the Nuremberg Academy of Painting. He was also a keen astronomer and in 1677 built his own private observatory just outside Nuremberg which he equipped with the latest instruments, some of which he constructed himself. His 30 cm globes, which he did not issue until the end of his life, may well have been modeled on Valk. His collaboration with J.B.Homann, meant that after his death, the plates for his globe gore sheets were acquired by Homann, and are sometimes included in Homann's atlases. This set, with their uncut deckle edges, have never been bound in atlas form. These globe gores are rare on the market. In the last decade just three incomplete sets of gores have been offered. Dekker (Op. cit.) records 5 sets of these engraved globe gores in institutional hands. She goes on to record the rarity of Eimmart's mounted globes, with just 3 pairs, 4 celestial and 2 terrestrial, recorded in the Literature. Cf. Dekker Globes at Greenwich pp 330-332.