• The Celestial Map Northern Hemisphere 1515 — Albrecht Dürer archival star map print, The Midnight Archive
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Gallery Curiosities

The Celestial Map — Northern Hemisphere (1515)

The Celestial Map — Northern Hemisphere (1515)

$39.00
$39.00
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Be among the first. This piece is newly listed, with no reviews yet, by design. We will not invent them. What we promise instead is below.

Produced to order · dispatched in 3–5 business days · tracked delivery

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Arrives right, or we remake it
If your piece arrives damaged, or the colour is wrong, we reprint and reship it. That failure is ours, not yours. Damage and colour only, not change of mind.
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Real paper, not a screen promise
Printed on true fine-art archival stock, Hahnemühle and Enhanced Matte. The substrate is named on every listing, never hidden.
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Curated and prepared in-house, produced to order
Every piece is selected and prepared in our studio, then produced to order on archival stock by our print partner. Nothing sits in a warehouse.

Source: Archival reproduction of Albrecht Dürer's Celestial Map, Northern Hemisphere, 1515.

The plate is one of the earliest printed star charts in the Western tradition, and one of the few that places mythology and astronomy in the same composition without subordinating either.

The constellations are rendered as full figures rather than diagrams: a hunter, a serpent, a winged horse, surrounded by the smaller stars they were meant to organize. The line work is tight, the negative space is generous, and the plate carries its age without effort.

Built to cluster on a gallery wall with other naturalist and celestial pieces, or to stand alone in a study or library at a smaller scale.

Heather's Note

Renaissance astronomers mapped the sky the same way they mapped the earth, by overlaying what they observed with what they already believed. Dürer's 1515 star map is one of the first printed celestial charts in the West, and it reads like both a scientific document and a mythological one: the constellations named, the figures drawn in full. What stays with me is how seriously it takes both things at once. It belongs in rooms where books and objects share wall space, somewhere it can be looked at slowly.

— Heather

Details

Fine art print, produced to order
Printed on Enhanced Matte Art Paper or Hahnemühle German Etching, depending on selected variant
Matte finish on both substrates
Framed and unframed options available on select sizes
Each print is made individually — allow 3–5 business days for production before shipping

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A 5 by 7 inch matte print from the archive, framed and resting on antique books
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$24

Start with the paper in your hands

The Pocket Archive is the lowest-risk way to meet the work: a small 5 × 7″ matte print from the archive, on the same archival stock, for the cost of a candle. Hold the paper, see the colour in your own light, then decide on the larger piece. The single best first purchase in the shop.

Explore the Pocket Archive · $24
Same damage promise. Same studio.
The part a screen cannot show

You are paying for the paper.
Here is the paper.

Photographed close, by the studio that prints them.
Close photograph of Hahnemuhle German Etching paper texture
Hahnemühle German Etching
A true fine-art cotton rag with a velvety, pronounced tooth. Heavyweight, deckled presence, reads as a drawing. For the pieces that want to be felt as much as seen.
Close photograph of Enhanced Matte Art paper texture
Enhanced Matte Art
A smooth, museum-matte surface with clean, even ink hold. Quieter than the rag, it lets colour and detail sit flat and precise. For the pieces that want to sit still.
Fade-resistant archival pigment inks. The colour you see is the colour in ten years.
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What we stand behind instead of reviews

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The remake promise
Arrives damaged or the colour is off? We reprint and reship. No return trip to the post office. Damage and colour only.
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A stated maker
Curated and prepared in-house, produced to order on archival stock. A studio with an eye, not an anonymous pipeline.
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Proof you can see
The actual paper, photographed close. The price is the paper, so we show you the paper.
We could buy a reviews app and seed it tonight. We will not. A brand built on the eye behind it does not get to fake the proof. So we are asking you to be among the first, and giving you every honest reason to feel safe doing it.