Lot 112
Bevis, John
Group of star charts c.1750
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 07 February 2024 from 10:00 GMT
Description
6 hand-coloured engraved pictorial star charts comprising plate numbers 5 (Boötes), 9 (Cygnus, Vulpecula and Lyra), 12 (Auriga) 16 (Aquila), 30 (Sagittarius), 36 (Orion and Canis major pursuing Lepus), mounted, framed and glazed, mount apertures 32 x 38cm, spotting, tanning along edges of mounts (not detectable when mounts in situ), Aquila and Sagittarius with worming to left-hand margins and Auriga with shallow loss to right-hand edge (all concealed by mounts)
(6)
Footnote
John Bevis's grandly conceived Uranographia Britannica, intended to contain 51 star charts with accompanying text, ‘might well have become one of the classic great star atlases of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’ (Kilburn et al., ’The Forgotten Star Atlas', JHA xxxiv, 2003). In the event his publisher went bankrupt in 1750, apparently having succeeded in printing only a small number of trial copies, and the copper plates were sequestered by the court of chancery, never to be released. Bevis died in 1771, and in 1785 his library and effects were sold at auction. The following year bound composite sets of his star charts appeared on the market with a new title-page giving the title as Atlas Celeste. Sets of Bevis's star charts in either incarnation remain very rare.