Astronomy (Astronomie)

Engraving, part of a series of twelve oval prints with allegorical representations of Minerva, Wisdom, the sciences and liberal arts. Most of them are represented by female figures (the exception being Physics, represented by Apollo), surrounded by pastoral landscapes, some of them with small towns with medieval buildings in the background. In the representations of liberal arts, Delaune depicts more detailed landscapes with fragments of classical architecture. This print presents an allegory of Astronomy, consisting of a standing woman in three quarter view, playing some sort of large oboe. At her feet are, on the left, two books, a celestial globe and a terrestrial globes, and on the right, sextants, sundials and astrolabes, all of them traditional attributes of this art.