# John Senex artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/john-senex/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T18:03:14.324Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: British
- Common media: Engraving, Printed maps and charts, Celestial and terrestrial globes

## About John Senex

John Senex was a British cartographer, engraver, globe maker, and publisher active in London during the early eighteenth century. Institutional and authority records place his birth around 1678 and his death in 1740. The British Museum also identifies him as a Fellow of the Royal Society and records his business at the Globe near St Dunstan's Church on Fleet Street. Senex worked across geographic and celestial publishing, producing engraved maps, charts, and globes at a time when improved observation and expanding geographic knowledge were reshaping European cartography. Collectors may encounter his name on individual map sheets, astronomical charts, atlas material, or globes, including objects later revised or supplemented by other makers. His output belongs more properly to the history of cartography, printmaking, publishing, and scientific instruments than to a conventional fine-art movement. Careful identification is therefore especially important when distinguishing an original Senex publication from a later state, reissue, reproduction, or work merely associated with his workshop.

## Common works and media

Works associated with John Senex most commonly include engraved maps, regional and geographic charts, celestial diagrams, atlas sheets, and terrestrial or celestial globes. Auction descriptions may also identify later states, collaborative publications, separately issued sheets, or objects altered after Senex's lifetime. Examples documented in the source pack include a Caspian-region map, a solar-system chart connected with William Whiston, zodiacal celestial mapping, and globes bearing Senex's name. Because later editions and additions can change an object's identity, the imprint, date, publication context, and physical construction should be recorded alongside the subject and medium.

## Market and appraisal context

John Senex market evidence should be compared by object type rather than by name alone. An engraved map, an astronomical chart, an atlas component, and a globe can have very different markets. Relevant appraisal factors include the publication date, edition or state, imprint, dimensions, geographic or celestial subject, completeness, condition, restoration, provenance, and attribution confidence. For maps and charts, margins, hand coloring, folds, trimming, staining, repairs, and whether a sheet was issued separately or removed from an atlas may affect comparability. Globe assessments may also depend on structural completeness and later additions. Public auction results provide useful reference points, but broad name matching, incomplete feeds, private transactions, and inconsistent inclusion of buyer premiums limit direct price comparisons.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine public artist-identity research with matched auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. Individual records should be reviewed for correct attribution, object type, condition, and reporting conventions.

## Sources

- British Museum: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG120272
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/13471693/
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3809607
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50009787
- Bibliothèque nationale de France: https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb153359925
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/john-senex/
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Senex._Kaspiska_havet._1742.jpg
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whiston_Senex_solar_system_chart.jpg
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Celestial_globe_by_John_Senex,_before_1740,_with_additions_by_Benjamin_Martin,_London,_1757_-_Putnam_Gallery_-_Harvard_University_-_DSC07939.jpg
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Senex_-_Zodiacus_Stellatus_Fixas_Omnes_Hactenus_Cognitas,_Ad_Quas_Lunae_Appulsus_Ullibi_Terrarum_Telescopio_Poterunt,_Complexus.jpg