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Qi Yanhuai
Qing official and scholar from Wuyuan who governed Suzhou and built a celestial globe in 1830
On an observatory terrace at night, a large bronze armillary sphere stands on a stone base while two people stand with their backs turned facing the view; stars are joined into constellation lines overhead, and a sundial and tiered dripping water vessels stand at the right.
Also known as Zi Yinshan · Hao Meilu
Qi Yanhuai, courtesy name Yinshan and sobriquet Meilu, came from Wuyuan, then in Anhui, and passed the jinshi examination in 1809. After the Hanlin Academy he became magistrate of Jinkui in Jiangsu and later prefect of Suzhou, where he proposed shipping the tribute grain by sea. Interested in astronomy and machines, he built Archimedean-screw water lifts and in 1830 made a celestial globe, and wrote short treatises on the globe and on his star-transit instrument, as well as collected poems and prose. He died in 1841.
Life and times
Dates 1774–1841