Museo Galileo
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Simple microscope, pocket
    • Setting:
      Room X
    • Maker:
      unknown
    • Place:
      French or Dutch?
    • Date:
      early 19th cent.
    • Materials:
      silver
    • Dimensions:
      height 105 mm
    • Inventory:
      3239
    • Simple microscope, pocket (Inv. 3239)

Simple pocket microscope made in silver. Intended to facilitate field observations by naturalists. A pillar set on three folding legs carries the mirror, the stage with a forceps, and the simple lens with a lieberkuhn (the latter accessory being named after its inventor, Johannes Nathanael Lieberkühn). Despite some resemblance with English microscopes of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, details of construction point to a different country of origin, possibly the Netherlands or France. Provenance: Lorraine collections.