Portable diptych sundial 1661 - 1685

This portable diptych sundial was made by Charles Bloud, a member of a French family of instrument makers, some time between the late 17th and early 18th centuries. As a precision instrument, this sundial speaks to a burgeoning culture of scientific inquiry and exploration. What does it mean to hold time in your hand? As navigators charted the seas and mercantile trade intensified, time and its precise measurement became increasingly valuable, especially for men of privilege and power. But consider, too, what this instrument obscures. Who were the unnamed laborers who extracted the ivory? What was the human cost of colonial expansion enabled by these tools? The sundial invites us to ponder the intersection of scientific advancement, social hierarchy, and the hidden histories embedded in the material world.