A pair of George I 8 ¾-inch terrestrial and celestial table globes by John Senex, circa 1715

Formerly in the collection of Edward Holyoke (1689-1769);

According to paper label, gifted to J. H. Ward in 1820.

Ronald Phillips, Fine Antique English Furniture, London, 2019, pp.186-189.

With every detail of the earth’s geography instantly accessible to us today, we can overlook the centuries of careful, accumulated research that have brought us to this height of extensive knowledge. The surviving globes of previous eras can give us an absorbing snapshot of our understanding of the earth at a point when this was constantly evolving. Combining the utility of a scientific instrument with decorative status of fine furniture, globes had a clear appeal to scholars and gentlemen in particular: appropriately, these globes belonged to a President of Harvard who fostered learning in one of the primary educational hubs of the United States for a tenure of twenty-eight years.

The globe in eighteenth-century Britain

The antecedents to the printed globe of the eighteenth century stretch back to antiquity, particularly after Claudius Ptolemy systematised the measurement of coordinates and the celestial constellations in the second century AD. The Renaissance saw the rise of the terrestrial globe as a pendant to a celestial globe, and both types are pictured in Holbein’s 1533 double portrait The Ambassadors. The Age of Exploration saw great swathes of the earth mapped and understood for the first time, leading to a surge in the production and demand for globes that was supported by the now well-established printing industry. While globes had previously been most commonly used as diplomatic gifts or in universities, their greater proliferation in this period meant that they also became prestigious objects in the libraries of merchants and gentlemen keen to develop and display their erudition. While globe production had previously tended to be localised within Continental European centres like Nuremberg, domestic production in England began to develop during the eighteenth century through the work of cartographers like John Senex, Charles Price, Richard Cushee and George Adams.

The globes of John Senex

John Senex (1648-1740) was a prominent cartographer and printer across various media, contributing significantly to the field in numerous ways. In the field of flat printed maps, his highly successful English Atlas (1714) remained in print for around 50 years, and he was also well-known for issuing a revised version of Ogilby’s Britannia (1675) with the road maps updated to reflect the 1710s. His globes were recognised as being of the highest quality and accuracy: his were the first globes to use the Bayer notation to identify stars, and he was one of the earlier adopters of arrows to denote the direction of trade winds on his terrestrial globes. He first became a freeman of the Stationer’s Company in 1705-06, and after a series of successful business partnerships with Charles Price and John Maxwell, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1728. Even after his death, the copper plates for his globes continued to be traded for use in print for decades, first by his widow, then by James Ferguson until 1757, then by Benjamin Martin. With some updates, his maps were still forming the basis for globes made by Martin and several others as late as the 1790s, demonstrating the prestige of the Senex name.

Very few Senex globes appear on the market, with most globes dating to the earlier nineteenth century, and those dating from Senex’s earlier career in the 1710s tending to be rarer than his later ones. Most comparable examples are in public collections, often of universities and places of learning. The History of Science Museum in Oxford holds a 1718 example from the collection of Oriel College (inv. no. 28920) as well as numerous later examples, while a celestial and terrestrial pair at Magdalen College Cambridge are currently on display after extensive restoration.¹ The pair dated to circa 1730 in the National Maritime Museum (GLB0138-9) are unusual in English collections for having their maps entirely in Latin, though this is understandably more common for Senex globes that are now in European collections, including the ones at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (ark:/12148/cb40673671v and ark:/12148/cb40673860r) and the terrestrial example at the University of Bologna’s Museo della Specola (inv. no. MdS-99). At auction, comparable examples by Senex have appeared in these Rooms on 31^st October 2018, lot 375, on 15^th June 2004 as lot 61 and at Christie’s London, 24^th November 1999, lot 85. Later eighteenth-century examples that use the maps by Senex sold in these Rooms as part of the Safra collection on 3^rd November 2005, lot 151 and in Sotheby’s New York on 16^th October 2008, lot 56.

Edward Holyoke

The eighteenth-century purchaser of these globes was Edward Holyoke (1689-1769), an American scholar who served as the ninth President of Harvard College. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard with high honours in 1705 and, after pursuing further theological studies, was appointed President in 1737. His tenure saw the university modernise and liberalise in several ways, including the introduction of more contemporary texts to the curriculum, the creation of the first American laboratory for experimental physics, and the introduction of subject specialisation for tutors in 1767. Holyoke was also the acquirer of the distinctive sixteenth-century chair that is now known as the President’s Chair or Holyoke Chair, which features in his portrait (fig. 1) and still symbolises Harvard’s presidency today. His presidency was the second-longest in the history of the university, and was also the oldest President to hold office.

¹ ‘Senex Globe Restoration’, Magdalen College News: Library and Archives, 1^st March 2022. Available at: <https://www.magd.cam.ac.uk/news/senex-globe-restoration> [accessed 19^th May 2023]