It just came to us from out of the blue.
The Frisian Daily for 25 January 2003 had an item on "the Frisian Nassaus", in particular on the recently completed inventory of the archive of this branch of the Nassaus.
On 27 January, there was a convention in Leeuwarden, and the Frisian Museum and the Princessehof, both in Leeuwarden, host a double-exhibition on this topic from 28 January until 10 June 2003 (Tue-Sun 11-17).
The book to the exhibition is:
Out of the Oranges' Shadow; the Nassau family and Friesland through the ages.
(ISBN 90 5194 261 3, Euro 24.50; in Dutch).
See also Frisian Museum.
So what has this to do with sundials?
Nothing so far, but the paper shows one of the archive records with the caption:
"A drawing of a sundial with calculations (1730), made for William IV, probably for the construction of the sundial in the Prinsenhof garden in Groningen.
And that, to us, is highly interesting.
If we compare the plan to the present Groningen sundial, it is clear that the basis has remained the same.
The empty space in the bottom right was actually filled in with the design data and the names of the makers, J. Doornbusch and G. Cramer.
And the motto over the sundial was not yet in the drawing.
However, the different kinds of lines on the sundial are clearly recognisable in the drawing.
For more on this sundial, see the Sundial of the Month for March 2003.
Address: Ryksarchief, Boterhoek 3 te Leeuwarden.
The Ryksarchief is part of the "Frysk Histoarysk en Letterkundich Sintrum, Tresaor".
Record: "Kaartenverzameling nr. 20029".
English translation: RH