The Bee Book of Johannes Schepens
11 oktober 2024 Art and Science
Written by Myriam van der Hoek. During our VisionLab at the Allard Pierson Artis Library earlier this year, we all had a look at one of the most beautiful manuscripts in the library’s collection: the bee book. Or so we call it. The official title according to the title-page reads: De groote wonderen Gods, beschouwd in het kleine Diertje, de Honingbye (The great wonders of God, seen in the little animal, the Honeybee). Title-page …
My Desk
6 juni 2024 Art and Science, My Desk
By Ellen Pater. A stable surface, yet always changing. Configuring for different tasks. That is my desk. It is where I draw, where I read, where I write, listen to music and drink my coffee. It is where I prepare my prints, engrave copperplates with sharp burins on a sack of sand, or roughen their surface with a rocker to make a mezzotint, tools of a trade that are now accompanied by my grandfather’s old wetting stone to sharpen my burins before use. Other times there is a microscope, to study a…
Great new biography of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek
14 april 2023 Antoni van Leeuwenhoekjaar 2023, Art and Science, Review
Review by: Eric Jorink In case you were not aware of it yet: 2023 is Antoni van Leeuwenhoek-year. Many activities will be devoted to commemorating the famous microscopist’s death 300 years ago. Among the events are an exhibition at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave; an international conference to be held at the Royal Society, a richly illustrated book edited by our team-members Sietske Fransen and Tim Huisman and a wonderful new biography by Geertje Dekkers, published this week. Cover of ‘Many, small and cu…
How to cut sections in the 20th century
27 maart 2023 Context 17th century microscopy, Practical knowledge
By: Frank Van Campen en Hans Huijbregts Microscopical observations start with preparations, of course. Largely written out of the historical narrative, the MicroLabs demonstrated the crucial importance of preparing (parts of) insects, plants and trees for minute observation. With regard to flora: only some objects are small and thin enough to be examined directly under a microscope. Most objects must be cut into thinner slices, or sections, to allow sufficient light to pass through them for micr…
Teaching at a primary school for ‘Door de Lens van Antoni’
29 december 2022 Antoni van Leeuwenhoekjaar 2023, Events, Primary school, Teaching
by: Larissa van Vianen. During the month November our team member Eric Jorink and intern Larissa van Vianen participated in the teaching programme ‘Door de Lens van Antoni’ as part of the upcoming Antoni van Leeuwenhoek memorial year of 2023. In four lessons the pupils of year 8 of primary school ‘De Vuurtoren’ in Lelystad were invited by our team members to follow in Van Leeuwenhoek’s footsteps and conduct their own scientific research, using microscopes, and preparations they made themselves t…
Symposium ‘Crawly Creatures in Context,’ 27 October
18 november 2022 Art and Science, Context 17th century microscopy, Events
by: Tiemen Cocquyt and Mieneke te Hennepe The Rijksmuseum’s current exhibition ‘Crawly Creatures’, focuses on the mediaeval and early modern perception on small, easily overlooked, critters, such as: mice, snakes and insects. It was curated by Jan de Hond, curator of History at the Rijksmuseum, Artis Library curator Hans Mulder, and our own research project’s PI (principal investigator), Eric Jorink. The exhibition shows highly detailed representations of insects, three dimensional objects such…
Our first workshop
6 september 2022 Events
By Sietske Fransen. From the 22nd until the 24th of June the first workshop of the Visualizing the Unknown project took place at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome, “Visual and Material Culture of Microscopy in Seventeenth-Century Italy.” Organized by Sietske Fransen and Tiemen Cocquyt this workshop aimed at opening up the discussion of our team away from the mainly Dutch context to the more international discussion on microscopy that took place in the seven…
On visualizing the previously Unknown
18 mei 2022 Uncategorized
By Eric Jorink. Welcome to our website, and the first blog of this wonderful project. In this place, we will keep you updated on our most recent findings, research and thoughts. Having started a year ago, the project is already in full swing – including what is perhaps the most exciting part of it: looking through original seventeenth-century microscopes (see MicroLabs). In trying to make sense of what we can see through these lenses and stumbling upon unexpected problems, flaws, unresolved ques…
