Universal ring sundial 18th century

Curator: What strikes me immediately about this piece is the exquisite dedication to understanding our place within the cosmos. This universal ring sundial—an intriguing artifact from the 18th century housed here at the Met—captures both baroque flair and a decorative sensibility. It's literally an attempt to capture time, a metal microcosm mirroring larger astronomical patterns. Editor: It feels almost contradictory—this rigid metal, trying to pin down something as fluid as time. Is it trying to master time or become one with it? I’m curious about the politics embedded here, especially the drive for quantification that accelerated in the 18th century. How did controlling time affect labor, social structures, and even colonialism? Curator: It’s so true; it speaks volumes. What seems a mere bauble hides a greater cultural context. But can we take a moment to savor its craftsmanship? The rings, the carefully etched Roman numerals—it beckons the eye to ponder, to twirl the thing. Doesn't it remind you of something an eccentric scholar would bring on his trips to exotic locales? Editor: Or perhaps an instrument owned by an aspiring cartographer charting imperial ambitions, ready to use science in service of their time. Time becomes not just about philosophical reflection but another territory to map and conquer. Whose time is privileged here, and whose is erased in the process of its measurement? How might different understandings of temporality –Indigenous, Black, feminine temporalities - complicate this seemingly neutral object? Curator: Yes, yes... The way in which it embodies control *and* opens onto greater speculation—to me, that’s what gives it magic. Looking at this elegant baroque object, the mind travels galaxies far, far away. That is how you can harness imagination from science. Editor: I concur. I am caught by the tension—it symbolizes a convergence between aspiration and material, illuminating both a moment of intense innovation and a manifestation of power and exploitation, deeply enmeshed with that era.