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Lot 16
An Edmund Culpeper brass universal equinoctial ring dial, English early 18th century,
31 October 2017, 13:00 GMT
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £3,500 inc. premium
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An Edmund Culpeper brass universal equinoctial ring dial, English early 18th century,
signed Edm Culpeper Fecit, the meridian ring engraved with latitude scale 90-0-90 degrees, reverse with scale for determining solar altitude and zenith distance, equinoctial ring with obverse engraved with hour scale in Roman numerals, central bridge with pin-hole sliding over calendar and zodiac scales, with suspension ring, 6in (15.2cm) diameter
Footnotes
Edmund Culpeper (1670 – 1737) was apprenticed into the Grocer's Company to Walter Hayes, engraver and mathematical instrument maker of Moorfields London in 1684. By 1700, Culpeper had taken over his master's shop and continued to trade under the sign of the crossed daggers, in Moorfields.
Culpeper is perhaps more commonly remembered for his contribution to optical instruments, in particular microscopes. A compound tripod microscope was named after him, although it is unclear whether he was the original inventor. He is associated with popularising two key elements of microscope design, the sub-stage mirror and the tripod microscope. Culpeper was making the screw-barrel microscope, of James Wilson's design, from 1700.
He boldly advertised in 1710 his services in microscopes as being broad in selection, with a variety second to none in the industry.
In addition, Culpeper was highly acknowledged for producing mathematical instruments in silver, brass, ivory and wood, with particular skills in the engraving of scales, dials, and sectors. We know of a memorial brass engraved by his hand in 1694, for a Dorothy Williams, in Pimperne church, Dorset. Curiously, he only became a freeman in 1714, reporting to take an apprentice the following day.
By 1737, the year in which Culpeper died, he was noted as trading 'near the Royal Exchange, Cornhill'. Following his death, his son followed his father into the trade.