Lunar Globe, Germany

The moon, pocked all over and mounted on a pedestal, looking pleased with itself.

This lunar globe comes from Berlin, Germany, and dates to around 1950. It is paper and plaster. Lunar globes were made for classrooms and studies as telescope maps were refined, and their popularity rose as the space race brought the moon within imagined reach. The sphere is printed in pale cream and blue-grey, crowded with circular craters and darker plains, with fine lines of a coordinate grid. A graduated metal half meridian curves around one side. It rests on a tall, tapering turned wood pedestal with a broad round foot. It is 15 inches high and 6 in diameter.

A small moon for a large desk.