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Table orrery
Hartog van Laun, c. 1800 - c. 1808
The instrument-maker Hartog van Laun designed a table orrery – a mechanical device to show the relative positions and movements of the sun, earth, moon and planets. He used the instrument for his own lectures, but he achieved true success with it only when the Amsterdam professor Jan Hendrik van Swinden fully explained it at the Felix Meritis Society in 1802 and published articles about it.
- Artwork typetellurium, orrery, lunarium
- Object numberNG-NM-11700
- Physical characteristicshout, messing, ivoor