[Perpetual Almanac.]

Wall calendar produced for the French market, displaying the month, day of the week, date, zodiac sign, time of sunrise and sunset, length of day and night in hours, and important feast days for the month, following the volvelle settings.

The perpetual calendar consists of a base and two volvelles, all hand-painted and varnished engravings mounted on pasteboard, affixed to a wooden mount with the maker's paper label on the verso. The leather ties have been fastened with a red seal on the verso. The seal may belong to the La Begue de Germiny family, who once owned this calendar and formerly resided at Chateau Beauregard on what is now the French / Belgium border.  
Ca 320x205 mm. Housed in a modern wooden box.

Christoffle Daniel Henning (1734 – 1795), a German miniature painter, engraver, art dealer and publisher with a keen interest in science.
These calendars were, it seems a particular specialty of the Henning family as examples are known to have been produced by his Father, Viet Balthasar Henning (1707 – 1762) himself a publisher of scientific books, an instrument maker and to whom Christoffle was apprenticed. Following his Father’s death, Henning took over the family publishing business. He witnessed and engraved the passage of the Great Comet of 1769 and succeeded as both a publisher and a miniature painter.

Numerous examples of his engravings are held in collections throughout Europe, with examples contained in Her Majesty’s Royal Collection and a fine collection of silhouettes that reside in the Nuremberg Museum.