Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.9440
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    Purslane seeds

    Date
    1665
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    After
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural Philosopher
    Object type
    Library reference
    RCN 45230
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 306mm
    width (print): 182mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Optics
          > Microscopy
    Biology
       > Botany
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
    Description
    Microscopic study of five purslane seeds portulaca oleracea.

    Inscribed above: ‘Schem XX’

    Written in the associated text: ‘The Seeds of Purslane seem of very notable shapes, appearing through the Microscope shap’d somewhat like a nautilus or Porcelane shell as may be seen in the XX. Scheme, it being a small body, coyl’d round in the manner of a Spiral’

    Plate 20 from Robert Hooke’s Micrographia: or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses with observations and inquiries thereupon (1665), the first fully-illustrated book on the topic of microscopy. In the preface Hooke asserts that he had discovered ‘a new visible World’.

    Robert Hooke (1635-1703) British natural philosopher was a founding member of the Royal Society, elected in 1663. Before his career with the Royal Society, Hooke had been apprenticed to painter Peter Lely (1618-1680), where he learned to draw and paint. Though he did not engrave the images in Micrographia himself they were engraved after his illustrations.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Europe
          > United Kingdom
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