made in England
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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