The dating of this astrolabe depends upon the presence of a measurable bismuth concentration in the metal (see the metal analysis by Davis), which points to the copper ore coming from the Rammelsburg mines in Lower Saxony. This seam however was largely exhausted, and so not available, after c.1350.

Thanks to the investigations of Davis et al, this instrument can be assimilated to a group of astrolabes produced in Italy in the mid and latter half of the 14th century designated by them the ‘Tomba group’ in honour of the collector /scholar who first identified them. Particularly significant in this respect is the break on the rete which has also occurred on three other astrolabes in this group Apart from its intrinsic interest as a particularly well-made, large, and early example of this group of European astrolabes in excellent condition, it is of importance for the fact that not only do some of its features reflect an influence from the English workshop producing astrolabes with quatrefoil retes in the second quarter of the 14th century, but the present instrument was taken to England soon after its construction, where a new plate was made for it, and where it may well have remained ever since if its recent provenance is a guide. The size of this astrolabe implies that it would have been expensive to produce, and thus was made for a wealthy, probably high ranking, patron. Further interest adheres to the instrument as evidence of the transmission of styles and objects in the later Middle Ages. It illustrates an influence from England on an Italian workshop perhaps located in Pavia or Milan. Subsequently, with appropriate irony, one of the products of this workshop, displaying all its own characteristics, returned to the land from which it partly had its birth.

Alfred Douglas Hownam-Meek (d. 1966), was the founder of the Castle Cove Sailing Club, Portland Harbour, Dorset, in 1923. The astrolabe came into his possession during the 1930s when ‘fossicking around the New Forest area’ with his brother S. G. Hownam-Meek, he purchased it from an ‘antique/junk shop’. Sent to a ‘professor in Cambridge’, probably Derek de Solla Price (1922-83), who pronounced it to be ‘the second oldest one in England’. ‘It hung in the dining room of Old Castle Cottage, Weymouth where it survived the house being partly demolished by the Luftwaffe’.

Richard Sydney Hownam-Meek (1920-2010), passed the greater part of his life in Hong Kong where he was well known as a notable yachtsman, an active member of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club from 1945, being Rear-Commodore 1969-71. He was a founder member of the Royal Hong Kong Auxiliary Marine Police Service which he commanded from 1960 to 1970, receiving the Colonial Police medal for meritorious service in 1962, and again in 1968. He published Afloat in Hong Kong (1978) and collaborated in The Local Master's Seamanship Manual and Guide to Hong Kong Waters, in 1983. The present owner received the astrolabe by descent, as a 21st birthday present.

RELATED LITERATURE
S. L. Gibbs, J. A. Henderson and D. de Solla Price, A Computerized checklist of astrolabes, New Haven, 1973

[A copy of recent investigations of the instrument by Dr. John Davis using XRF analysis is included with the lot.]

Sotheby’s would like to thank Anthony Turner for his kind help in cataloguing this lot.