Love and death and a shark with mushrooms: An auction of scientific instruments and globes in Vienna’s Dorotheum on 8th May 2007

Bronze skeleton

Cat shark

Models of mushrooms

Globe by Leonard und Gerard Valk

Early scientific instruments are fascinating. They are imbued with the spirit of times gone by and combine – at least from today’s perspective – empiricism and art. They are aesthetic objects with a function and as such can be regarded as a form of applied art. The Dorotheum’s “Historic Scientific Instruments and Globes” department satisfies the collecting urge of an ever-growing following. And another sale will be held on 8th May 2007. Included this time will be photographic equipment including an early multi-lens Leica M3 camera dating from 1954 (bidding to start at €2,000).

An extremely precise 42-centimeter-high bronze skeleton by Carl Kauba (Vienna 1865–1922) designed as a visual and teaching aid and signed on its hipbone, is estimated to fetch between 5,000 and 6,000 euros. Less precisely scientific but concerned nonetheless with man’s mortality is an Italian Memento Mori relief in greyish-brown limestone. Objects of this kind, which served as a reminder of the transitory nature of all life, were in great demand during the Baroque, a period characterised by joie de vivre on the one hand and strict faith on the other. This 19x14cm relief dates from the 16^th/17^th century and is based on an emblem by Italian humanist Andrea Alciati. It depicts Morte et Amore: Death (as a skeleton holding a scythe) and Cupid. The inscription explains that Death is carrying the quiver and Cupid the arrows and therefore emphasises how closely intertwined the two are (estimated price €2,000–4,000).

Death is also a key symbol in the work of many contemporary artists such as British star Damien Hirst. Hirst made art history with his controversial shark pickled in formaldehyde. Somewhat smaller in scale is a 116-cm-long stuffed cat shark that once hung from the ceiling. In the 18^th century the shark inhabited a Jesuit College and is thought to have been made by a Linz taxidermist. Expert Simon Weber-Unger describes the object (estimate €1,200–1,600) as an “authentic chamber of curiosities and teaching item, possibly part of the original inventory of the pharmacy founded by the Jesuits in Linz in 1732”.

Scientific models probably come closest of all these objects to the status of artworks. This is certainly true of an important wax model designed to illustrate the fibre course of the midbrain of a newborn baby. This model was produced by the atelier of scientific model-maker Friedrich Ziegler in Freiburg im Breisgau sometime after 1901 (estimated price €2,000–3,000). Another interesting lot, made in Bohemia in the 19^th century, consists of ten naturalistic models of toadstools and mushrooms standing on square wooden bases imitating the forest floor. The ten types of fungus are shown both young and fully grown and the model bears a Czech inscription in gold lettering (estimate €2,000–2,500).

Where can you find California depicted as an island? Where can you see Australia (then New Holland) missing its east coast? This and much more besides can be seen on the world globe by Leonard and Gerard Valk. This globe, supported by a wooden frame resting on round feet, has a diameter of 23 cm and was made in Amsterdam around 1700. It consists of 12 painted copperplate segments. It depicts the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn and the polar circles and picks out the major cities in gold lettering (estimate €6,000–10,000). And another lot, an armillary sphere or orrery (estimate €3,000–5,000), can be used to gaze at the stars and planets. Made in Paris sometime after 1856, probably by Maison Delamarche, this celestial sphere includes the Earth, of course (depicted as a wooden sphere with paper segments and meridian circle) along with the sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune but the moon is missing – one of the many reasons scientific objects offer such scope to the imagination.

	Bronze skeleton
	Cat shark
	Models of mushrooms
	Globe by Leonard und Gerard Valk
	Press information