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Barometer and thermometer
Unknown - Enlarge image
Barometer and thermometer
- Place of origin:
Paris, France (made)
- Date:
1700-1725 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Possibly oak veneered with ebony, tortoiseshell and brass; mounts of gilt brass
- Credit Line:
Bequeathed by John Jones
- Museum number:
1120-1882
- Gallery location:
In Storage
At the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th, the study of the sciences was developing fast. Thermometers and barometers hanging in a gentleman's apartment offered elegant evidence of the owner's intellectual interests.
This combined instrument was clearly designed for a library or for a small, personal room of the type known as a cabinet in France. Its case is veneered in boulle marquetry, which was highly fashionable at the time and took its name from Louis XIV's cabinetmaker, André-Charles Boulle. However, Boulle’s workshop was by no means the only one to use this technique, which combined ebony with panels of marquetry in tortoiseshell and brass.
