Collection:
Louwman Collection of Historic Telescopes
Accession #:
LC 22
Sources:
Project investigation.
Boerhaave exhibit.
Louwman, P.J.K., and Zuidervaart, H.J., "A Certain Instrument to See Far: Four Centuries of Styling the Telescope Illustrated by a Selection of Treasures from the Louwman Collection of Historic Telescopes". Wassenaar, 2009.p. 61.
Louwman, P.J.K., and Zuidervaart, H.J., "A Certain Instrument for Seeing Far: Four Centuries of Styling the Telescope Illustrated by a Selection of Treasures from the Louwman Collection of Historic Telescopes". Wasscnaar, 2013. p. 40. Item # 22.
Public Notes:
"English telescope with tubes made of pasteboard. The main tube and the ferrules are covered with green parchment, with simple gold tooling. The stamp used resembles Turner (1966), no. 27. Three drawtubes covered with white vellum. The end pieces are made of lignum vitae or pock wood. The eye lens is not original. Length 23-60 cm, Ø 3.5 cm. Unsigned, but convincingly identified as manufactured in England. According to Rudd (2005) this instrument is one of the oldest preserved English telescopes, dating from the third quarter of the seventeenth century.
In the first half-century after the invention of the telescope, during observations these instruments were usually tied in a wooden trough. To guarantee proper support in that time the telescopes were provided with ferrules or supporting rings with identical diameter as the barrel. This use was abandoned in after 1660-1670. As this telescope has such ferrules of equal diameter, Rudd has attributed the instrument to the period 1650-1675. He suggests that the optician Richard Reeve(s) the maker is of this instrument. Reeve(s) was originally trained as an ‘ivory turner’. He made telescopes from about 1644 until his death in 1666. Two of his sons continued the business until 1689. The most successful instrument maker in that period, however, was Christopher Cock, one of Reeve’s former apprentices, working in the period 1657-1673" (Louwman, and Zuidervaart, 2013).
Dioptrice is made possible by the generous
support of the National Science Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Program in the History and
Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame, and the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum.
