{"data":{"id":"8021","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":8021,"topgoose_id":16101,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":8021,"title":"Celestial Navigation","display_artist_text":"Joseph Cornell","display_date":"c. 1958","accession_number":"92.24a-e","dimensions":"Overall: 10 × 16 3/8 × 3 7/8 in. (25.4 × 41.6 × 9.8 cm)","medium":"Assemblage of painted wood and printed papers, aperitif glasses, marbles, plaster head, painted cork ball, metal rods, brad nails and painted glass","department":"collection","classification":"Sculpture","credit_line":"60th Anniversary Gift of Estée Lauder, Inc.","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eJoseph Cornell, \u003cem\u003eCelestial Navigation\u003c/em\u003e, c. 1958. Assemblage of painted wood and printed papers, aperitif glasses, marbles, plaster head, painted cork ball, metal rods, brad nails and painted glass, overall: 10 × 16 3/8 × 3 7/8 in. (25.4 × 41.6 × 9.8 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; 60th Anniversary Gift of Estée Lauder, Inc. 92.24a-e. © The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eJoseph Cornell was interested in the latest scientific discoveries, poring over articles and books on astronomy and regularly observing the constellations from his backyard, but in his art he preferred a simpler, more mechanical image of the universe. \u003ci\u003eCelestial Navigation\u003c/i\u003e recalls the clockwork mechanism of an orrery—an eighteenth-century apparatus that explained the solar system with miniature revolving planets. Like an orrery, the box contains moving parts: the blue ball rolls along metal tracks and the marbles can be switched from one cordial glass to another. Cornell placed these movable orbs and a broken clay pipe in the form of a human head against a backdrop of “fixed” stars, fragmentary constellations pasted onto the walls of the box. In \u003ci\u003eCelestial Navigation,\u003c/i\u003e Cornell invokes the myths, images, and theories once used to explain the predictable yet baffling patterns of the night sky. The box presents an ordered, though perhaps not entirely knowable, universe.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A wooden framed display shows four wine glasses with blue marbles, a speckled ball, and a small white bird.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:30:09.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:12.646-05:00","images":[{"id":99327,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/8021/92_24a-e_vw1_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"293","type":"artist"}]}}}}