Microscope Museum

Collection of antique microscopes and other scientific instruments

 

    

Microscope 2 (assigned to Edouard Lutz; Modéle des ecoles primaires; c. 1890)

A wooden box

Description automatically generatedA picture containing table

Description automatically generatedA picture containing indoor, table, sitting, wooden

Description automatically generatedA picture containing table, standing, street

Description automatically generated

Edouard Lutz (1832-1895) was a manufacturing optician who operated out of Paris at Boulevard Saint Germain in the late 19th century. The firm was founded in 1848 and Lutz supplied a variety of optical instruments, including a school microscope (Modéle des ecoles primaires), a pocket dissecting model, and achromatic models. Microscope 2 is a small compound field microscope of French origin designed for use of primary school students, made of lacquered brass except for the gold-painted iron foot. The instrument is not signed. However, it is assigned to Edouard Lutz, being identical to his Modéle des ecoles primaires, dated to c. 1890 (Figure 1A). The difference of microscope 2 to the Modéle des ecoles primaires is the absence, in microscope 2, of the knurled knob allowing the fine focusing. A possibility is that microscope 2 is an earlier and simpler version of the model depicted in the c. 1890 catalogue. Indeed, an identical instrument without the focusing knob is featured in the American Ernest Goldbacher’s 1879 catalogue, where it is described as a non-achromatic microscope of French origin (Figure 1B).

Figure 1. Modéle des ecoles primaires microscope as shown in the c. 1890 Edouard Lutz catalogue (A), and an identical microscope featured in the American Ernest Goldbacher’s 1879 catalogue (B)

 

References

Edouard Lutz (c. 1890) Extract du catalogue general des instruments d’optique

Modéle des Ecoles primaires (https://www.microscope-antiques.com/lutz.html), last accessed on 12.08.2020

 

LAST EDITED: 15.08.2020