Cary’s 21′ Library Globes

A Pair of Cary’s 21-inch Terrestrial and Celestial Library Globes.
Each surmounted by a brass scale in a circular mahogany stand with four arched supports on baluster and ring-turned columns and tripod legs terminating in block feet and castors, one inscribed ‘Cary’s New Terrestrial Globe exhibiting the tracks and discoveries made by Captain Cook… together with every other improvement collected from various navigators to the present time’, and the other ‘Cary’s New and Improved Celestial Globe on which is carefully laid down the whole of the stars and nebulae… the whole adapted to the year 1800 and the limits of each constellation determined by a boundary line’, ‘London, made and sold by J & W Cary, Strand, March 1st 1815, with additions and corrections to 1823,’ and ‘made and sold by J & W Cary Strand 1799’.

Provenance: The Freemason’s Hall, Bournemouth

Literature: The celebrated Cary family of cartographers and globe makers produced some of the greatest late Georgian globes. The firm was started in London in the late 18th century by John Cary (c1754-1835), an engraver and dealer in maps who often worked in partnership with his brother William Cary (c1760-1825), a scientific instrument maker. John Cary concentrated on geographical excellence rather than on decoration. In about 1820 the Cary brothers moved their business to 86 St. James’s Street, leaving the premises at 181 Strand to John Cary’s sons George (c. 1788-1859) and John Jr. (1791 – 1852) who traded as G. & J. Cary until about 1850. For an 18-in globe also by J & W Cary, dated 1818/1827 with very similar papers, legend and stand in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, see Elley Dekker, Globes at Greenwich, Oxford 1999, page 296.