Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.9449
    Looking for a special gift? Buy a print of this image.

    White plume moth

    Date
    1665
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    After
    Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703, British) , Natural Philosopher
    Object type
    Library reference
    RCN 45230
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 304mm
    width (print): 184mm
    Subject
    Physics
       > Optics
          > Microscopy
    Biology
       > Entomology
    Content object
    nature
       > animal
          > insect
    Description
    Microscopic study of a white plume moth pterophorus pentadactyla, showing its head, body, legs and wings outspread.

    Inscribed above: ‘Schem XXX’

    Written in the associated text: ‘all the Body, Legs, Horns and the Stalks of the Wings, were covered over with various kinds of curious white Feathers, which did, with handling or touching, easily rub off and fly about, in so much that looking on my Fingers…I found by my Microscope, that they were several of the small Feathers of this little creature’

    Plate 30 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
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline