Map of the Heavens by Johann Bode: Vorstellung Der Gestirne (Presentation of the Stars), Taurus, Framed

Only the front half of the bull appears, charging out of a cloud of stars with its horns lowered.

This map of the heavens, framed, is Vorstelling Der Gestirne (Presentation of the Stars), Taurus, by Johann Bode, with Lange as publisher, from Leipzig, Germany, and dated 1782. It is a hand colored engraving on paper. Astronomers since antiquity have drawn Taurus as the forepart of a bull, and Bode's atlas follows that tradition. The bull is a warm rust brown, labeled Stier, beside Orion with his raised arm and the Pleiades in a small inset box. It is matted in cream within a gilt frame. It is 22 inches wide and 21 high.

Half a bull, and still the loudest thing in the sky.