Instruments · Horizontal sundial
Horizontal sundial by I. Despont, France, 1650 – 1700 (uncertain)
- Maker / attribution
- I. Despont (maker)
- Date
- 1650 – 1700 (uncertain)
- Historical period
- Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
- Country of origin
- France
- Place
- Paris, France
- Object type
- Horizontal sundial
- Materials / technique
- steel, copper alloy, silver, shagreen, silk, glass
- Dimensions
- length 5,2 cm; width 3,7 cm; thickness 0,6 cm; length 6,1 cm; width 4,8 cm; thickness 1,2 cm
- Holding institution
- Musée du Louvre, Paris
- Accession / object no.
- OA 10703
- Credit line
- Musée du Louvre, Département des Objets d'art du Moyen Age, de la Renaissance et des temps modernes
- Catalogue title (original)
- Cadran solaire horizontal et son étui (French)
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Record summary
Held and catalogued by Musée du Louvre, Paris (object number OA 10703), this is a horizontal sundial by I. Despont, made in Paris, France, dated 1650 – 1700 (uncertain). The Atlas places it in the Early Modern Horology period (1600 – 1750) of its Instruments collection. Materials and techniques recorded by the source: steel, copper alloy, silver, shagreen, silk, glass. Recorded dimensions: length 5,2 cm; width 3,7 cm; thickness 0,6 cm; length 6,1 cm; width 4,8 cm; thickness 1,2 cm. The record is illustrated with 2 photographs.
Assembled from the source record's structured fields. Dates and attributions are given as the source states them; where a field is missing the Atlas leaves it blank rather than estimating.
Catalogue description
Catalogue description — Musée du Louvre (French)
L'étui, de forme ovale comme son cadran, est mui d'un bouton d'ouverture. La platine de l'instrument est gravée d'une échelle horaire pour la latitude de "49" degrés. Son centre est orné d'une rosace. La boussole, entourée de la signature, est constituée d'un fond amovible qui peut se positionner suivant la déclinaison magnétique ; il est marqué de la direction des quatre points cardinaux et, au nord, de la lettre "N". L'aiguille a la forme d'une tige interrompue vers la pointe par une petite traverse. Le gnomon triangulaire rabattable est agrémenté d'un filet noir en bordure. Au dos, le tambour de la boussole est décoré d'une fleur. La languette servant de ressort au porte-ombre a la forme d'une fleur de lotus. A l'opposé de la boussole, deux pieds équilibrent l'instrument.
Shown in the original language of the source catalogue. An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.
Dating and period as catalogued (French)
Epoque / période : Louis XIV (1643-1715) (Occident->époque moderne = Ancien Régime->dynastie des Bourbons) · · Date de création/fabrication : 1650 - 1700
Shown in the original language of the source catalogue. An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.
Materials and techniques as catalogued (French)
Matériau/Technique : Cadran : argent, verre, acier bleui, alliage cuivreux doré, émail noir · , Etui : chagrin noir, soie et velours roses · Matériau : acier · Matériau : alliage cuivreux · Matériau : argent · Matériau : chagrin · Matériau : soie · Matériau : verre · Technique : bleui (techniques métal) · Technique : doré = dorure (techniques métal) · Technique : velours (techniques textile->tissu uni)
Shown in the original language of the source catalogue. An editor-reviewed English translation has not yet been published; we do not publish machine translations as authoritative text.
Inscriptions & marks
Etiquette : ; "COLLECTION N,E,LALANDE , PARIS , / ANTIQUAIRE / 3, R. DE DURAS" (étiquette ronde de marchand au revers de l'étui) ; Signature : ; "I - DESPONT APARIS " (autour de la boussole)
Provenance
Collection Nicolas Landau (1887-1979) ; legs Marcelle Landau, 1980
Historical context
Early Modern Horology (1600 – 1750)
Huygens' pendulum and balance spring transform accuracy; English makers develop the anchor and deadbeat escapements.
Pocket sundials, Butterfield dials and sandglasses remained essential companions to imperfect clocks; navigators used sandglasses and the log line; observatories began to combine telescopes with pendulum clocks.
Read the period in the timelineMore instruments from this periodEarlier: Renaissance Horology
Atlas type guide
Sundials and solar time-finders
A sundial tells time from the position of a shadow cast by a gnomon or style. Because the sun's apparent motion depends on latitude, every fixed dial is laid out for a particular latitude, and portable dials either carry a latitude scale or are made for one region. Sundials show local apparent solar time, which drifts against mean (clock) time by up to about sixteen minutes over the year — the equation of time.
Portable dials were the pocket instruments of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Nuremberg and Augsburg workshops produced folding ivory diptych dials with inset compasses; English and French makers sold brass horizontal dials, ring dials and the Butterfield type; Japanese and Chinese makers had their own traditions of compass dials. After mechanical watches became reliable, dials remained in use for setting them, and nineteenth-century heliochronometers were built to correct directly for the equation of time.
What to look for
- The latitude engraved on the dial plate or a latitude arc on the gnomon — it shows where the dial was meant to be used.
- The type of hour lines: equal (equinoctial) hours, Italian or Babylonian hours counted from sunset or sunrise, or unequal temporal hours on early and Islamic instruments.
- An inset magnetic compass and whether a magnetic-declination mark is drawn on its card — a useful dating clue because declination changes over time.
- Maker's signatures and town marks: Nuremberg compass-makers (Kompassmacher) often struck a personal mark and the town's punch.
- Additional scales such as lunar volvelles, wind roses, perpetual calendars or lists of cities with their latitudes.
Dating clues
- Ivory diptych dials are characteristic of Nuremberg between about 1500 and 1700.
- Butterfield-type dials with a bird-shaped adjustable gnomon point to Paris workshops from the late seventeenth century onward.
- Equation-of-time tables engraved on the plate became common after the mid-seventeenth century, once pendulum clocks made the difference between solar and mean time obvious.
General guidance written by the Atlas editors about this kind of object. It is not a statement about this particular piece; for that, rely on the source record above and on physical examination.
Read next:The history timeline
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