Antique Solar System Chart with the Seasons and Phases of the Moon, 1870

About this sheet

The astronomical plate of the atlas, and the most decorative sheet in the volume. It sets out the solar system in a single diagram, with the comparative size of the planets, the comparative size of the sun and the planets, and the comparative distances of the planets from the sun. Around it are arranged the theory of the seasons with the zodiacal signs and the duration of the longest day, the theory of the tides with spring and neap tides, a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse, the phases of the moon, the rotundity of the earth, the refraction of the atmosphere, the circles of the sphere, twilight and dawn, and a mariner's compass. Astronomical plates of this kind are among the most decorative things a Victorian atlas produced and they sell well framed, either alone or in a group with a celestial chart.

Black's General Atlas of the World was the standard British household atlas of the middle nineteenth century, issued in Edinburgh by the publishing house of Adam and Charles Black, the firm better known to most readers as the publisher of Sir Walter Scott and of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Its maps were engraved on steel, most of them under the direction of the Edinburgh cartographer John Bartholomew, whose clear lettering and restrained hill shading gave the atlas a legibility that its heavier rivals lacked. Successive issues were revised as boundaries moved and railways spread, so a sheet from Black's records the world as an educated Victorian reader understood it in the year the plate was printed.

Sheets from this atlas are sought after today both as reference cartography and as decorative material, the generous folio format suiting a wall quite as readily as a portfolio. Hung as a pair or a group, the plates make a handsome and genuinely informative wall.

The sheet is in good condition for its age, with the centre fold as issued, light toning and some creasing and chipping at the upper left edge of the margin; the image is clean.

This is an original antique plate, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.