A sphere projecting against a plane [graphic].

[London] : Pubd. Jany. 3d, 1792, by H. Humphrey, N. 18 Old Bond Street, [3 January 1792]

1 print : etching ; sheet 28 x 23 cm

wove paper

Temporary local subject terms: Vehicles: platform on castors -- Mathematics: definitions of sphere and plane -- Literature: Euclid's Elements, Bk. i, def. 2; Bk. iv, def. 1.

From a collection in twelve volumes probably compiled by Francis Harvey and sold at auction, Sotheby, London, June 1900. Bequest of Hugh Dudley Auchincloss to Yale University Library, 1981. Bound by Riviere & Son in three-quarters red morocco with gold tooling and gold lettering on spine.

"Pitt, very thin, stands rigidly erect in profile to the right. Mrs. Hobart, immensely fat, completely fills a globe which stands on a rectangular platform on castors, and whose circumference rests against Pitt's post-like person. She looks up at him expectantly; he stares over her head with a pained expression. Beneath the title is etched: 'Definitions from Euclid. Def: Ist B: 4th. A Sphere, is a Figure bounded by a Convex surface; it is the most perfect of all forms; its Properties are generated from its Centre; and it possesses a larger Area than any other Figure. - Def: 2d B: Ist A Plane, is a perfectly even & regular Surface, it is the most Simple of all Figures ; it has neither the Properties of Length or of Breadth ; and when applied ever so closely to a Sphere, can only touch its Superficies, without being able to enter it - Vide. Euclid, illustrated; by the Honble Mrs Circumference.'"--British Museum online catalogue.

English

February 09, 2007