If only my ‘drawing room’ wasn’t also my lounge room and my dining room and my sometimes fall asleep on the couch room.
Because if I didn’t live in a one-bedroom flat, I could have a separate drawing room, which would be home to my dreamed-of library and feature a big, beautiful globe.
In fact, since we’re talking fantasy here, I’d have two big, beautiful globes – one terrestrial and one celestial.
I got a little taste of my reverie this week – not by way of my home magically expanding, but by proximity to a collection of beautiful globes; some big (5-feet-tall big!), some small, and some just right for what I have in mind.
London’s Royal Geographical Society is currently playing host to a two-week exhibition and working studio recreation from Bellerby & Co. Globemakers.
Peter Bellerby’s company hand-craft bespoke freestanding and desktop globes that are enough to make a girl like me swoon.
From the painstaking ocean detail of the special edition ‘Creatures from the depths’ model illustrated by Meredith Owen, to the classic olive hues of the Perano Terrestrial in its reclaimed oak stand with aged brass meridian, to the beautifully rendered astrological and astronomical representations of the Perano Celestial, every globe I had the pleasure to gaze upon, turn, and run my hand over (why was I so compelled to run my hand over them?) was exquisite.
Made using traditional and modern techniques, Bellerby globes are at once nostalgic and sleek.
The Churchill, for example, is very closely modelled on a 1940s globe owned by its namesake, Sir Winston. In contrast, the special edition ‘Mash Up’ is thoroughly modern with its Google Earth map artwork morphed into spherical life. And on another tangent altogether is Fiona Owen’s vibrant graphic homage to the interconnectedness of mankind and nature, ‘Terra Incognita’.
While I may dream and I may imagine, for now at least, my globe-adorned drawing room fantasy must remain just that. To tide me over, I bought a some Bellerby picture postcards to stick on my wall.
Pictures by Amy Freeborn
I’m a globe collector .and i love your site.congrats.