The Paris Observatory

The Artwork

Below, those threads stretched toward the moon are tube-less telescopes: the lens sat atop a pole or wooden tower, while the astronomer, down in the meadow, held the eyepiece in his hand. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, with a handmade frame.

The man who aimed them was Giovanni Domenico Cassini, a Ligurian born in 1625 in Perinaldo, near Sanremo. He was teaching astronomy in Bologna when, in 1669, Colbert summoned him to Paris with the Pope's reluctant permission, and he remained in Paris until his death in 1712. It was there that he discovered four of Saturn's moons, two of them in 1684 using telescopes of this kind, and the division in the rings that bears his name. To support longer lenses, in 1685 he had a wooden tower built for the Marly machine brought to the Observatory. After him, the Observatory remained in the Cassini family for three generations, but the official title of director did not come until 1771, bestowed upon his grandson.

Above are the "Veue septentrionale" and the "Fasade meridionale" of Claude Perrault's building, laid out on June 21, 1667, precisely along the Paris meridian; below, the nighttime scene. The print dates from 1705 and is part of Nicolas de Fer's Atlas Curieux, the Dauphin's geographer, who sold his maps on the Île de la Cité under the sign of the Royal Sphere: an atlas that promises both heaven and earth in its title. The engraver, Antoine Coquart, signed in the lower right. The original of this print is part of the David Rumsey Map Collection.

Beside a home telescope or on a desk, it is a gift for those who spend their nights gazing at the sky and for those with roots in Liguria. Down in the meadow, someone still holds the thread aimed at the moon.

Uniquely high-quality materials

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm
With frame: 31 x 44 cm
Material: artwork printed on the finest handmade Amalfi paper with deckle edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass