Description
Charles Dien, Jr. was a French astronomer and globe maker, who produced a popular series of celestial atlases and maps. His father, Charles Dien, Sr., had been an engraver and associate of the globe making firm of Félix Delamarche around 1819. From at least 1833 until the 1850s, the younger Charles Dien produced several globes under his own name, mostly celestial, and a few terrestrial globes as well. He also published several atlases of astronomical phenomena and in 1833 a description of the use of the celestial globe. Charles Jr. introduced an innovation in celestial maps with his Uranographia in 1831, a wall map without traditional pictorial illustrations of constellation figures. Instead he indicated the constellations with straight lines connecting the principal stars, which more closely approximated the actual appearance of the skies while providing more visual cues to assist in recognizing the patterns than maps of the stars alone. This method also made it easier to show newly discovered stars. Dien’s idea gained wide acceptance and is still used on star maps and planispheres for amateur astronomers today. Dien Jr. also collaborated with the French astronomer Nicolas Camille Flammarion (1842-1925) on Atlas Céleste, a comprehensive atlas of over 100,000 stars and nebulae, and editions were published from 1865 into the 20th century, well after Dien’s death.
Emile Bertaux was a Parisian publisher of maps, atlases and globes active in the second half of the 19th century. He produced globes by Charles Dien and Edmund Dubail, Eichens’ navisphere, as well as Mars and lunar globes. Bertaux was successor to the globe making firm of Grosselin, which was successor to Delamarche after 1847.
Cartouche: GLOBE/Classique/ NOUVELLE EDITION/ Par/CH. DIEN./ MEDAILLE D’ARGENT/ PARIS/ E’LE BERTAUX EDITEUR/ 25, Rue Serpente, Paris.
References:
Dekker, Elly and van der Krogt, Peter. Globes from the Western World. London: Zwemmer, 1993. pp. 78, 83, 172, 173 and 175.
“Globe Terrestre par Charles Dien, Paris, 1834.” Christie’s. 4 October 2006. http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/globe-terrestre-par-charles-dien-paris-1834-4766813-details.aspx?intObjectID=4766813 (30 July 2013).
Kanas, Nick. Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography. Berlin, Heidelberg, New York: Springer-Praxis Books, 2009 (2nd ed.). pp. 295-296. Online at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=d3ljp7Yikq0C&pg=PA295 (30 July 2013).
