Antique Furniture

A Monumental Globe Manufactured By Etablissement Géographique de Bruxelles

Period

ca. 1835

Material

mahogany base

Sizes

(height) 137.00cm. (diameter) 118.00cm.

Description

The globe is mounted in a base that is carried by a tripod stand with voluted S-shaped legs. Between the legs a support carries the meridian scale in which the globe is mounted.
The upper rim is inscribed with the months of the year and the corresponding signs of the zodiac.

In 1830 Philippe Vandermaelen (1795-1869) founded the Etablissement Géographique de Bruxelles. With the help of modern techniques, such as lithography, he manufactured maps and globes. As soon as 1836, the great quality of Vandermaelen’s work, that distinguished itself by great accuracy and the application of the most recent topographical information, was widely aknowledged as top class and the Etablissement Géographique de Bruxelles was to become marketleader in geografical publications. The advantage of a globe over a two-dimensional map was to be found in the superior insight in the actual position of two locations on the earth’s surface.
The Etablissement manufactured, in different sizes, two types of globes: Globes d’Instruction and Globes de Cabinet. From 1836 on, the larger Globes de Cabinet (with a circumference of 2,5 m) were drawn by H. Renaud and engraved by P.J. Doms.
From 1836 onwards, the company offered in its catalogues globes in a mahogany frame with wooden meridians instead of the traditional brass ones. They were mainly manufactured to be used by amateur-geographers. The elaborate construction made them not only an instructive tool, but also an elegant and decorative element of the interior of the drawing room or the library.
Maps published by the Etablissement Géographique de Bruxelles were always updated to the latest geographical recoveries. An unmounted globe dating of 1843 shows the coastal outline of the Antarctics for as far as it was known to date. The globe at issue does not yet show the Antarctic coast. Most likely the globe is to be dated in the years 1838-1840.
Literature:
Peter C.J. van der Krogt, Globi neerlandici, The Production of Globes in the Low Countries, Utrecht 1993.