Picture of the Week #15

King Henry VIII’s astrolabe at the British Museum. May 1998.

From the British Museum website:

This small astrolabe, signed by Bastien Le Seney from Normandy, clockmaker to Henry VIII, is inscribed with the King’s motto and arms but surprisingly the quartering is mixed up and lions in the top left quarter face in the wrong direction.

Dimensions
Diameter: 85.5 millimetres
Thickness: 4.5 millimetres
Length: 124 millimetres (Overall length including suspension loop.)

Curator’s comments
For the reversed quartering (namely England appearing in the first and fourth quarters rather than the second and third) cf. Philip Lankaster, ‘A note on some partizans with the Tudor royal arms in the Royal Armouries’, in: Royal Armouries Yearbook, 7, 2002, pp. 40-45 (Copy on file).

The quality of the markings and the execution of the intrument as well as the lions in the first quarter facing sinister raise serious doubts about its authenticity as an instrument made for Henry himself.