Description

 The top of the plate, edged with a fillet, is engraved with a list of 20 cities and their latitudes, some of which are very rare for a French sundial (see below). In the centre is a movable hour circle fixed on a hinge and adjustable to the desired latitude thanks to a movable arm graduated from 0 to 90 degrees and located on the left of the dial. The hour circle is graduated on the top twice from I to XII (divided into 30/15 minutes) and the inside is graduated twice from 1 to 12 (also divided into 30/15 minutes). A movable gnomon is fixed in the centre, which can be folded down when the instrument is closed. The signature ‘Butterfield AParis’ is located at the bottom of the dial.

The centre of the plate is equipped with a large compass, fixed by two screws and engraved with an 8-point compass rose, with north marked by a fleur-de-lis. Around the edge is a scale divided into four 90-degree sections. The centre is equipped with a blued steel needle with a brass pivot, and the whole is covered with glass.

The underside of the plate, edged with a fillet, is engraved with a list of eight cities and their latitudes, and the bottom of the compass is engraved with a list of 20 cities and their latitudes.

This sundial, which is relatively small for its type, is of exceptional quality and is in remarkable condition. The engravings are very fine and typical of Michel Butterfield’s early work, around 1680. Its distinctive feature is that the latitudes of the cities are given with great precision for the time, which indicates a specific use of the dial, for example by a traveller or navigator. This is also confirmed by the fact that the top of the plate features only two European cities, Montpellier (in France) and Bastogne (in Belgium), which are undoubtedly the towns where the owner lives, as well as 10 very distant foreign cities or regions such as the Isle of Fer, the Cape of Good Hope, Siam and Jerusalem. Even more surprising is the presence of Batavia (6°15′), a city very close to the equator on the edge of the Indian Ocean. Batavia was the name of the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company in Insulinde from 1619 to 1799 and then the capital of the Dutch East Indies from 1799 to 1742. It is now the city of Jakarta, the former capital and largest city of the Republic of Indonesia. Finally, the presence of the Iron Island (28°10′) is characteristic of a great navigator, as it was also the reference point for meridians at that time. As the original meridian, the Iron Island was replaced by the Paris meridian after the French Revolution and then by the Greenwich meridian at the beginning of the 20th century.

Dimensions: 6.5 cm x 7.1 cm x 1.7 cm

France made circa 1680.