1885 BERTAUX, E. - Globe terrestre d'après les découvertes..

Attractive and large (height 112cm) library globe by a prominent Paris globe maker, with a brass meridian circle, horizon ring, and hour ring, supported by four brass quadrants on an elegant baluster-turned wooden column with three inswept legs terminating in pad feet.
Twelve colored lithographed gores and two polar calottes, showing steamship navigation routes and ocean currents, political and geographical boundaries defined, telegraph cable routes, explorations until 1878/80 (by Nordenskïold), Ocean currents colored by hand.

A few repairs of surface cracks were made, executed very well and are hardly noticeable—the usual light scratches and abrasions. Printing of the map is very delicate, and ocean currents are colored and sometimes more prominent than the continents.

The condition of the globe is generally very good. An attractive and impressive library globe!

NOTE: Additional shipping costs apply. The item is located in Zwijndrecht (The Netherlands)  and can be seen or collected during regular business hours.

Emile Bertaux (fl.1880-1900), active in Paris, rue Serpentine 25 and succeeded the business of Charles Dien. He made terrestrial and celestial globes for many Paris sellers. He also published celestial planispheres for the Journal du Ciel and globes by Dien, Dubail and the navisphere of de Magnac, made by F.W. Eichens, besides other instruments devised by this navigator, were listed by him, as were those devised by the Vice-Admiral J. Lejeune. Fléchet's mechanical equinoctial mean-time dial could be obtained from him, as could J. Laurendeau's 'Drawing-room observatory - a series of eleven pierced constellation charts. Special globes for Chancourtois’ sphereography designed by Grosselin were made by him.
In the 1867 International Exhibition, he was awarded a bronze medal and he devised a clockwork-driven planetarium contained within a glass sphere.
A globe clock using one of his globes is known.

In 1875, Bertaux joined the house of Delamarche, at the solicitation of the managing director, Gosselin. A founding member of the Société Astronomique de France in 1887 and both its secretary and its treasurer, Bertaux was awarded the Prix de Dames for his services in 1903.
He was succeeded in the direction of the Delamarche business by G. Thomas. He included in his range the Moon globe of C.M. Gaudibert and Camille Flammarion, the Mars globes of E. Antoniadi and Flammarion (1884) and a terrestrial ‘Globe métrique’. A 30cm terrestrial globe by him is dated 1886.

Globe sizes: terrestrial 8cm to 66cm (including a Spanish edition); celestial 8cm to 66cm. These were issues of the Delamarche/Dien globes revised by E. Desbuissons.
Armillary spheres, either Ptolemaic or Copernican, were available from 8cm to 33cm, as were geared planetaria. Among the atlases he published was MAGER, Henri. 'Petit Atlas de géographie en relief ' [n.d. but ca. 1880 - 1883.

Reference: A Bio-bibliographical Dictionary of precision Instrument-makers and related craftsmen in France & Switzerland, 1430-1960.