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Felkl, Jan
By Pierre Joppen
Dec 14, 2009, 04:28

In 1855 Jan Felkl offered an illustrated prospectus for globes in six various sizes. Within the next 20 years, Felkl rose to be the largest globe manufacturer within the Austro-Hungarian market, producing terrestrial and celestial globes in 17 languages, as well as lunar globes, planetaria and telluria.
Felkl's early globes were produced by engraving and hand coloring the gores. Increase in production was made possible with the development of lithography as of 1873. Felkl founded a "geographic lithographic institute" in Prague to produce globe gores and maps. Best known author of the German Felkl globes was the Leipzig cartographer Otto Delitsch, who developed the idea of brown color tone graduation of height of mountain ranges.

In 1870, Felkl moved his factory from Prague to Roztok and took his youngest son Christoph Zikmund as partner in his firm, renamed Felkl & Son (1875- 1950) They employed up to 40 people and opened branches in Prague and Vienna. After the death of Jan Felkl in 1887, the firm was continued by the Felkl family until 1950.

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