Industry Bespoke Globemakers Products Globes Headquarters London | Founder Peter Bellerby Website www.bellerbyandco.com Founded 2008 | |
 | ||
Bellerby & Co, Globemakers is a privately owned English company based in Stoke Newington, North London, specialising in the manufacture of artisanal handcrafted globes. It is one of only two handmade globemaking companies in the world.
Contents
Background
Peter Bellerby founded the company in 2008 after a fruitless search for a special globe for his father's 80th birthday. Having searched in vain he set about making a globe himself - by hand - for his father, leading to the founding of the company in 2008.
The Louvre commissioned the company to remake Coronelli's original celestial globe, first made for Louis XIV in 1683. The original plates have been stored for over three centuries and are in almost flawless condition. The Louvre will display the piece on the grand staircase at the museum.
Two globes were commissioned for the 2011 film Hugo. In 2012, the company hosted the first ever globe exhibition at The Royal Geographical Society. In the same year, an egg-shaped Bellerby globe was donated to The Faberge Big Egg Hunt charity for auction in London. The auction raised £11,100 for the Elephant Family conservation movement.
A second "egg" globe was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York in 2014 and raised $25,000, for both Elephant Family and Action for Children. The company is involved with a charity campaign called 'Travels to my Elephant' – a one-of-a-kind rickshaw they made was auctioned on 30 June 2015, raising £22,000 towards the £1 million goal of creating elephant corridors in India.
In March 2015 the company was the subject of a segment on The One Show on BBC1.
Bellerby & Co. has collaborated with British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare on a number of gallery and exhibition projects; for instance Shonibare asked for a "globe head" for his ballerina statue for the Royal Opera House.
Globemaking
The globes are made of hollow plaster of Paris hemispheres which are glued together. The map details are created from contemporary maps that are customised and corrected using Adobe Illustrator. The maps are then printed onto paper gores and are hand painted. After they are glued onto the globe, they are coated in layers of resin. The globes are weighted so they come slowly to rest when spun.
The "Churchill Globe", at around fifty inches in diameter, is the largest made by the company. Its design is based on a globe presented to Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt by George Marshall, the US Army's Chief of Staff during World War II.