made in England

Telescope (detail)

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.

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Online ID:	000-190-001-057-C
Image Rights Holder:	National Museums Scotland
Project:	0098: National Museums Scotland Project description \| View all records in project
Ref:	National Museums Scotland T.1976.93
Date:	Around 1720 c. 1720
Material:	Vellum
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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