Astrolabe Catalogue

The highly decorative Persian astrolabes of the 17th and early 18th centuries achieved a great vogue and during the next two centuries were frequently imitated in a somewhat degenerate manner, usually still well crafted and handsome, but often inaccurate in their astronomical content and functionality and meaningless in some of their inscriptions. A forgery as distinct from an imitation is such an instrument that makes false claim to a particular date or maker's name. This example uses the name of 'Abd al-'Alī, an astrolabist maker associated with the Iṣfahān group of instrument makers of the first decades of the 18th century. The most obvious clue is the almost totally symmetrical rete, which is an impossibility since it is meant to be a map of real star positions. For a genuine astrolabe by 'Abd al-'Ali see inventory no. 40330.

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