Jesse Ramsden
date: label: date made
content: 1791
notes: label: Description
content: Jesse Ramsden (1735-1800) was an English instrument maker whose honors included fellowship in the Royal Society of London, membership in the Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, and appointment as optician to George III. This engraving is based on an oil portrait by Robert Home (1752-1834) that is now in the collections of the Royal Society. The signature at the bottom reads “I. RAMSDEN, / OPTICIAN TO HIS MAJESTY” and “Painted by R. Home” and “Engraved by John Jones” and “London, Pubd as the Act Directs Jany the 1st 1791 by Molteno Colnaghi & Co. Pall Mall.”
label: Description
content: Ramsden appears in a comfortable chair. His right arm rests on the circular dividing engine that he built in the early 1770s in order to produce the graduated arcs for the sextants and octants that would enable British navigators to determine their positions at sea. In the background is the great astronomical circle of 1789 that Ramsden built for the observatory at Palermo, Sicily. Ramsden’s fur coat refers to the instruments commissioned by the Empress of Russia.
label: Description
content: The Smithsonian acquired Ramsden’s dividing engine in 1890 through the auspices of Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, and brought this Ramsden portrait in 1892.
label: Description
content: Ref: Anita McConnell, <i>Jesse Ramsden (1735-1800), London’s Leading Scientific Instrument Maker</i> (Aldershot, 2007).
label: Description
content: J. Elfreth Watkins, "The Ramsden Dividing Engine," <i>Smithsonian Institution Annual Report for 1890</i>, pp. 721-739.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United Kingdom: England, London
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Physical Sciences
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content: Prints from the Physical Sciences Collection
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content: Measuring & Mapping
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PH.181141
label: accession number
content: 25734
label: catalog number
content: 181141
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Jesse Ramsden (portrait print)
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 19 3/4 in x 13 3/4 in; 50.165 cm x 34.925 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 27 1/2 in x 21 1/2 in x 1 in; 69.85 cm x 54.61 cm x 2.54 cm