A Mughal silver-inlaid brass celestial globe, India, late 18th century

The present celestial globe is a rare example bearing Persian inscriptions instead of the traditional use of Arabic. In her comprehensive study of Islamic Celestial Globes, Emilie Savage Smith (1985) only records two out of one hundred and thirty-two globes bearing words in Persian. One is in a Parisian private collection and possibly made for the Mughal Emperor Alamgir I, dated 1090 AH/1679 AD (cat. no.30, p.232) and the other, in papier mache, is in the Oxford Museum of the History of Science, Billmeir Collection (inv. no.57-84/30; cat. no.94, p.264).

The Persian inscriptions consist of detailed descriptions of the constellations including information about the characters of people born under certain stars. These are recorded next to the depiction of each constellation, with various characters and temperaments identified with titles such as: fiery nature (mizaj-i atashi), airy nature (mizaj-i badi), watery nature (mizaj-i abi), warm nature (mizaj-i garm), cold nature (mizaj-i sard), dry nature (mizaj-i khushk), earthy nature (mizaj-i khaki).  

Some of the constellations depict human figures wearing typical Mughal turbans. Moreover, the constellation representing a ship with a house is inspired by a popular Mughal representation of the Ark of Noah (see for comparison a sixteenth century miniature in the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C., inv. no.F1948.8).