A FRENCH GILT-BRONZE ARMILLARY SPHERE

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A FRENCH GILT-BRONZE ARMILLARY SPHERE
THE GLOBE BY JEAN PIGEON, CIRCA 1720, THE GILT BRONZE STRUCTURE LATE 18 TH/19TH CENTURY
The armillary formed of two brass meridians, met at the top by a suspension loop, rings representing the polars, tropics and equator, wide ecliptic band engraved with months and the houses of the Zodiac, the celestial globe signed 'Jean Pigeon', and bearing dedication to the Duc d'Orléans
27½ in. (70 cm.) diameter

Specialist note

This unusual Ptolemaic armillary sphere, with globe by Jean Pigeon (1654-1739) was probably converted to form a hanging armillary in the late 18th or early 19th Century. Pigeon was a celebrated French physicist, mechanic and author of Description d'une sphere mouvante Paris, 1714. A similar Pigeon globe features in an astronomical clock constructed around 1805 by Andreas Steib at the Bayerisches National Museum in Munich. A Copernican armillary sphere attributed to Pigeon is in the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence (VII.37).