Painted Wood Pillar Dial

Turned wood pillar with removable top for story the hinged brass gnomon, painted with a rural landscape with a seated couple in 18th century dress, hour lines from V-XII and 1-7, lower edge with calendar scale and zodiac signs, signed in manuscript ‘Gottfried Reiff fec Nurib’, 125 x 40 x 40mm, Nuremberg, mid-18th century.

This vertical cylindrical sundial, also known as a travelling dial, pillar dial, or more commonly, the Shepherd’s dial, was one of the most widely used dials in the world. It comprises a wooden cylinder covered by a varnished paper. A central cylindrical hole holds the cylindrical capital that carries the gnomon, which folds away. Vertical declination lines, numbered according to date, run along the bottom of the dial. The hour-lines are drawn across the declination parallels from right to left with bold lines for the hours and dotted lines for the half-hours.

Provenance:

Harriet Wynter Ltd. 1995