Scientific instruments, like this ornate microscope, were a powerful tool during the Age of Enlightenment.
Compound Microscope and Case, c. 1751, attributed to Claude-Siméon Passemant. Gilt bronze, enamel, shagreen and glass; wood, tooled leather, brass, velvet, silver galon and various natural specimens. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Speakers: Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk, Associate Curator, Sculpture & Decorative Arts, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, and Dr. Beth Harris, Executive Director, Smarthistory
Did you know how the microscope expanded scientific understanding of the world? With the invention of the microscope in the 17th century our world expanded to the microscopically small. This 18th-century Rococo French device, one of only ten of its kind worldwide, served as both a decorative and functional instrument, embodying the political power of science and art during the Age of Enlightenment.
Getty has joined forces with Smarthistory to bring you an in-depth look at select works within our collection, whether you want to learn more at home or make art more accessible in your classroom. This video series illuminates art history concepts through fun, unscripted conversations between art historians, curators, archaeologists, scientists, and artists, committed to a fresh take on the history of visual arts.
This Compound Microscope and Case are featured in the exhibition “Magnified Wonders: An 18th-Century Microscope,” part of the larger initiative “PST ART: Art & Science Collide.”
0:00:04.5 Dr. Beth Harris: We are standing in the gorgeous Rococo Room at the Getty Museum. And though this room is filled with decorative objects and wood paneling with gilding, we’re here actually to look specifically at an object from the Rococo period that wasn’t purely decorative, but had a very specific function. We’re looking at a microscope.
0:00:29.6 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: This is our beautiful French microscope. It is a very unique object. There are only 10 of a kind in this world, and this is actually the only one in an American museum.
0:00:41.3 Dr. Beth Harris: And we’re not that far from the invention of the microscope, which happened around 1600. Around the same time as the development of the telescope.
0:00:50.7 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: We’re actually in the Age of Enlightenment, which was a time of great interest in studying nature through observation. Science evolved in two different circles. We have the church, clergymen, and we have the court and the nobility, who are very interested in scientific progress and research. So even the French king Louis the XV had huge interest in all kinds of different science.
0:01:20.5 Dr. Beth Harris: So science is important to Louis the XV, and he’s investing huge amounts of money in scientific instruments, in bringing men of science to the court. And we know that Louis the XV owned a microscope that may have been very much like this one.
0:01:36.6 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: Absolutely. We have engravings that shows the most important scientific instrument that the king possessed; one is very similar to ours.
0:01:48.0 Dr. Beth Harris: So this microscope is really special. First of all, it’s a compound microscope. It has multiple lenses and therefore enables greater magnification. But also it has this micrometer. It has this tool that enabled the men of science of the era to precisely measure the specimen that they were looking at.
0:02:08.4 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: Our microscope has two parts. The scientific part, which actually the upper part, which consists of the microscope itself, the green sharkskin tube, the three lenses. So one lens in the tube, one lens in the eyepiece, and one objective lens. You have the micrometric stage, you have the arm where you can lift it up.
0:02:30.8 Dr. Beth Harris: And then, below, a mirror.
0:02:32.7 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: So the mirror is very important to actually see the specimens, because to see it you need the light. So usually during the day you would just place the microscope close to windows to capture the daylight. But at night, when it’s getting darker and the day’s becoming shorter, you actually need an external light source, which usually was just a simple candle. And then we have the base, it’s composed of four feet, and they’re beautiful crafted acanthus leaves in form of C-scrolls, and goes in opposite direction to create a lot of movement, which creates a dynamism, which is in contrast to the microscope that has to be very still.
0:03:17.1 Dr. Beth Harris: On the other hand, I was thinking about the way that the Rococo forms suggest organic growth and movement and the idea of life continually in flux. And that seems to me to capture the kind of spirit of looking through the microscope to try to understand how things come to be.
0:03:36.4 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: And the Rococo style is always inspired from natural elements.
0:03:40.8 Dr. Beth Harris: The room that we’re in is filled with those kinds of decorative forms. So if you are a member of the nobility or aristocracy and you were to display this object, it would fit well within the decorative scheme. This particular microscope was housed in a purpose-built leather case decorated with gold tooling. But when we open it up, it’s no less beautiful, no less eye-catching.
0:04:05.6 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: It’s fitted with green silk. And if you look closely, you see braided silver trim, and it shows the importance of the microscope. And it also has a second function, which is to make place for all the different accessories. Because we have different objective lenses, we have a lot of samples. We have tweezers, we have magnification glasses.
0:04:28.6 Dr. Beth Harris: And so we can imagine that the owner took out this case, opened it up, took out the microscope, and showed this perhaps to a group of interested observers of friends.
0:04:40.8 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: So we actually have a very interesting engraving where you can see men of science looking through very similar microscope, where you actually have this kind of special mirror and you have a screen, two candles, to have even more light to see through the microscope.
0:05:00.0 Dr. Beth Harris: There are people with him talking, the sense of the excitement of learning and seeing these things for the first time.
0:05:06.9 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: And when you look into the books of that time, you actually find quotes from people telling you how astonishing and mind-blowing it is through a microscope. For example, Passemant, who did the optical lenses of our microscope, wrote that everything that is usually disgusting seen through the microscope becomes fantastic.
0:05:30.3 Dr. Beth Harris: Between looking at the heavens and looking at microscopic things, it must have seemed as though the world had become so much larger, in a way.
0:05:37.9 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: Knowledge at that time, as today, is power.
0:05:41.9 Dr. Beth Harris: King Louis the XV governs by divine right. His position, his authority, is given to him by God. But here we are in the age of science and it’s science and knowledge of the world that also enables his power.
0:05:58.2 Dr. Miriam E. Schefzyk: And he also shows that by, for example, handling a microscope, opening this world to his subjects.
0:06:07.3 Dr. Beth Harris: I’m imagining how exciting it would’ve been to sit around a table and have this set up for me, making even mundane things like a flea amazing and miraculous.
