Telescope (detail)

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This is a detail of the barrel of a refracting telescope. The instrument was made in England around 1720. It is unsigned.

The detail shows the decoration on the barrel, which has been dyed in parts green and red, and stamped with book-binding tools no. 20b in Turner's table, used twice to form a symmetrical pattern and filled with gold leaf.

In 1966, a study of the motifs on 70 English instruments showed that the same book-binding tools were used to decorate instruments signed by different makers. However, the motifs fell into three stylistic - and therefore possibly dating - groups.

Record details

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• Online ID: 000-190-001-057-C
• Image Rights Holder: National Museums Scotland
• Project: National Museums Scotland
  Project description   View all records in project
• Ref: National Museums Scotland  T.1976.93
• Date: Around 1720
  c. 1720
  
• Material: Vellum
  Telescope
  
• Dimensions:
• What: Telescope
  
• Subject: 3. ASTRONOMY, Refracting telescopes (Departmental Classification)
  22. PHYSICS, Light (Departmental Classification)
  
• Who:
• Where: ENGLAND
  
• Event:
• Description: Five-draw vellum-covered telescope, unsigned, England, c. 1720
  
• References:
  • Turner, G. L'E., 'Decorative Tooling on 17th and 18th Century Microscopes and Telescopes' in Physis: Revista internazionale di storis della scienza 8 (1966), pp 99-128; republished in Essays on the History of the Microscope. Oxford: 1980, pp 79-108 
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