Click main image below to view enlargements and captions.

Globe, English, George Philip, Celestial, 6-Inch Table Globe, Pedestal Brass Stand, 20th C.

George Philip & Son
Philips’ 6-inch Popular Celestial Globe
London: Mid 20th Century
Brass stand
13 inches high
Price on request

We have another example of this globe on brass stand in 2025. Please email for pictures of it; description is the same.

The celestial globe is surmounted by a brass finial and brass polar cap, mounted on a brass stand with inclination arm, baluster central standard and round base. The globe is printed in beige against a dark blue background. The stars are drawn to five degrees of magnitude, corresponding to a key in the cartouche. Some stars are named and many are labeled with Greek letters. Solid lines connect the stars within constellations rather than illustrating them as mythological and other figures. Straight dotted lines indicate their boundaries according to a convention dividing the sky into 88 interlocking constellations adopted in the 1920s by the International Astronomical Union. The Milky Way is indicated shaded with pale white dots.

Product description continues below.

Description

By 1928, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) had agreed upon the division of the celestial sphere into 88 interlocking “modern” constellations enclosed by boundaries with straight-line contours at right angles to each other that is still in use today. These boundaries enclosed the traditional pictorial representations of the constellations that date back to antiquity for the Northern Hemisphere, and for Southern Hemisphere constellations that were added in the 16th and 17th centuries after European navigators mapped the sky south of the Equator. Accordingly, many 20th-century globe makers followed the IAU approach by including the outlined boundaries used by astronomers while showing the constellations as lines connecting the bright stars within each respective constellation, generally against a blue background to simulate the night sky. Hatched, solid, or colored lines have been variously employed by globe makers to represent these different categories of information. Nonetheless, some 20th-century celestial globes were still designed according to the earlier practices of showing the constellations as illustrations of mythological figures and scientific instruments, or more generally as showing them enclosed within curved  boundaries of these traditional constellations.

George Philip & Son began as a map and atlas publisher in Liverpool, England in 1834. In 1902, the firm relocated to London and emerged as one of the major globe producers of the 20th century. Read more on our Guide to Globe Makers.

Oval Cartouche: PHILIPS’/ Popular/ CELESTIAL GLOBE/ Magnitudes/ [key to 5th magnitude]/ LONDON/ G. PHILIP & SON, 32 FLEET ST.

References:

“The Constellations.” International Astronomical Union. https://www.iau.org/public/themes/constellations/ (4 December 2019).

Additional information

Maker Location

Maker

,

Globe Type

Celestial

Material

Brass, Plexiglas, Plastic

Style

Art Deco