5,750 CHF
Butterfield a Paris, circa 1700. Fine octagonal, horizontal, portable silver sundial with compass in original shagreen fitted box. Notes Butterfield's dials are generally semi-universal horizontal dials, usually octagonal or oval in shape, and bearing three or four different hour scales, each marked for a different latitude. The gnomon's index, which Butterfield designed as a bird, must be set for the proper latitude on the scale. This was a very popular type of dial during a period of about 120 years, from 1670 to approximately 1790. Michael Butterfield (1635-1724).He was an English maker who moved to Paris, probably in 1663 and became one of the most eminent sundial makers of the time. In 1677 he had a shop "Aux Armes d'Angletterre" in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Among his clients were the King and the Académie Royale des Sciences; his friends included Huygens and Cassini. Butterfield's fame was so widespread that when Peter the Great was in Paris in 1717, he visited his shop. Butterfield invented a number of new instruments, among them the present one, which he described in "Cadran à bousolle portative" in 1701/2.
Auctioneer:
Antiquorum
Date:
2003-11-16
