1747 Georg Maurice Lowitz Map of the July 25, 1748 Solar Eclipse

Detailing a Projected Annular Solar Eclipse.

This is Georg Moritz Lowitz's 1747 celestial chart, projecting the annular solar eclipse of July 25, 1748. Published by the Nuremberg map printing house of Homann Heirs, this bilingual chart detailed the parts of the world from which the event would be visible, using a series of stereographic projections of the world to illustrate the track of the eclipse. An additional hemisphere illustrates the path of the center of the eclipse around the globe.

A Closer Look

This elegant chart (as described in its two cartouches, in German and in French) mathematically and astronomically projected the course and appearance of the annular solar eclipse of July 25, 1748.  The print is dominated by four hemispheres: one illustrates the central path of the eclipse in an abstract way without the benefit of geographical detail. The other three show the track of the eclipse as it was projected to appear in Canada, Europe, and the Arabian Peninsula. At the lower right, a table indicates the timing of the eclipse for observers in Berlin. In the lower left, the map is dedicated by Lowitz to his patron, the scientist and mathematician Leonhard Euler.

Publication History and Census

This sheet was published by Homann Heirs in 1747, probably for separate issue. We see twelve examples in institutional collections.

Cartographers

Georg Maurice Lowitz (1722 - 1774) was a German cartographer, astronomer and professor of mathematics. His youth is not documented, but his parents were Wolfgang Lowitz and Catherine Lobits. He was director of the observatory at Göttingen for a timne. In 1766 he travelled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to join the Academy of Sciences. He observed the 1769 transit of Venus from Gureyev (modern Atyrau) north of the Caspian Sea. During the 1773-75 Pugachev Rebellion he was employed by Russia in making surveys to construct a canal between the Volga and the Don rivers when he was captured by Pugachev's Cossacks, and killed.   Further Details...

Homann Heirs (1730 - 1848) were a map publishing house based in Nuremberg, Germany, in the middle to late 18th century. After the great mapmaker Johann Baptist Homann's (1664 - 1724) death, management of the firm passed to his son Johann Christoph Homann (1703 - 1730). J. C. Homann, perhaps realizing that he would not long survive his father, stipulated in his will that the company would be inherited by his two head managers, Johann Georg Ebersberger (1695 - 1760) and Johann Michael Franz (1700 - 1761), and that it would publish only under the name 'Homann Heirs'. This designation, in various forms (Homannsche Heirs, Heritiers de Homann, Lat Homannianos Herod, Homannschen Erben, etc..) appears on maps from about 1731 onwards. The firm continued to publish maps in ever diminishing quantities until the death of its last owner, Christoph Franz Fembo (1781 - 1848).   Further Details...

Condition

Excellent.

References

OCLC 245969055.