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    Feathers

    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): 208mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Optics
          > Microscopy
    Biology
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > bird
    Description
    Microscopic study showing the structure of feathers [unspecified].

    Inscribed above: ‘Schem XXII’

    Written in the associated text: ‘the outward surface of the Quill and Stem was of a very hard, stiff and thorny substance, which is obvious enough, and that the part above the Quill was fill’d with a very white and light pith, and, with the Microscope, I found this pith to be nothing else, but a kind of natural congeries of small ubbles,the films of which seem to be of the same substance with that of the Quill, that is, of a stiff transparent horny substance.’

    Plate 22 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
    Credit
    © The Royal Society
    Image number
    RS.9442
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