Cancer

The crab of the zodiac, to be held up to the light.

Chart: Urania's Mirror
Plate: Plate 19
Astronomer: Sidney Hall
Date: 1825
Held by: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · via Wikimedia Commons

Plate 19

Format

The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

Plate 19 of Urania's Mirror, the boxed set of 32 star cards engraved by Sidney Hall and published by Samuel Leigh at 18 Strand, London; this copy dates from about 1825, an etching coloured by hand on layered paper board. The cards were said to be designed by a lady. Much later the researcher Peter Hingley showed they were the work of the Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam, an assistant master at Rugby School. Cancer, the crab of the zodiac, is faint, with the cluster Praesepe at its heart. Each star is pierced through the card, so the crab can be held to the light and seen shining.

See it on your wall

A window onto the heavens, in your home

Cancer printed large and framed, hung in rooms like yours. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

About this reproduction

A faithful reproduction of a public-domain chart held by Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · via Wikimedia Commons — the work is centuries out of copyright.
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed pieces sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount (gold-ink editions on specialist press).
Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed pieces ship flat-packed).
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our charts cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the gold figures, the tiny stars, the cartouches — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.

From the same astronomer