This is a linocut portrait of Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (October 24, 1632 – August 26, 1723), the Dutch scientist considered the "father of microbiology" and known for his improvements to microscope technology. He was a draper in Delft, then a politician with an interest in lensmaking. Using his own handmade microscopes, he was the first to observe microorganisms, which he called tiny animals, or "animalcules". He also made pioneering microscopic observations on muscle fibres, bacteria, coffee and blood flow in capillaries and discovered spermatozoa, amongst other things. His discoveries were shared with the scientific community of his day through his correspondence with the Royal Society who published his letters. Each print is 11" by 14" (28 cm by 35.6 cm), on white Japanese kozo paper with "chine-collé" rust, yellow and green paper.
He shared his drawings of the microscopic world he observed with others, but kept his technological innovation to himself. He was able to fashion tiny glass spheres as lenses in his simple microscope - the tinier the sphere the greater the magnification. He made these spheres by placing the middle of a small rod of soda lime glass in a hot flame, then pulling the hot section apart to create two long whiskers of glass. He then placed a whisker of glass into the hot flame to make his tiny spheres. He consciously allowed people to erroneously assume he was toiling away, grinding finer and finer lenses.
He was initially reluctant to share his observations and detailed scientific illustrations, lacking any formal education in science or art, but his friend Dutch physician Reinier de Graaf convinced him to share his work with the Royal Society. He captured their attention and began a regular correspondence, writing 190 letters in his colloquial Dutch. Scientist and editor of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg learned Dutch in order to translate these letters into Latin or English. His first observations of single-celled organisms were met with skepticism, despite a track-record of excellent observations, but he was eventually vindicated and even elected to the Royal Society in February 1680.
He was famous in his day and an observer to the end. Letters sent in the last weeks of his life at age 90, detailed observations of his own rare illness, sometimes called van Leeuwenhoek's disease.
The portrait is one of my history of science series, like the four shown in the final image. Find more of my science-themed art here:
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