The constellations of the northern sky

The artwork

On the left, between the Bull and the Virgin, a long lock of hair descends, tied at the bottom: it is the Hair of Berenice, a constellation born from a haircut. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, with a handmade frame.

Berenice II, queen of Egypt, had promised her long hair to the gods if her husband, Ptolemy III, returned safely from the war in Syria. She cut it off and placed it in a temple; according to Hyginus, it had disappeared the next morning. The court astronomer, Conon of Samos, announced that Aphrodite had carried it into the stars, and the poet Callimachus wrote verses about it, which Catullus translated into Latin two centuries later: from him comes the name Coma Berenices. Scholars date the story to around 245 BC; from the sixteenth century, cartographers depicted it as a constellation in its own right.

The chart, “Hemisphaerium Coeli Boreale,” is by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, who identifies himself in the cartouche as a public professor of mathematics and a member of the Leopoldina Academy and the Royal Prussian Society. It comes from his Atlas Coelestis, published in Nuremberg by the heirs of Johann Baptist Homann in 1742: thirty astronomical charts, compiled from plates engraved over several decades. This one shows the positions of the stars calculated for 1730, and in the columns on either side, each star has its coordinates; in the corners, putti handle instruments for measuring the sky. Hand-colored, the original is preserved in the David Rumsey Map Collection.

It is a gift for an anniversary, or for someone who searches for the stars from their balcony in summer, to hang in a bedroom or above the sofa. And the Hair of Berenice, on the left, still hangs among the stars.

Uniquely high-quality materials

Printed on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 40 x 60 cm
With frame: 42 x 62 cm
Material: artwork printed on the finest handmade Amalfi paper with deckle edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass