From manuscript to microscope, a dive into the scientific world of flora and fauna
From private family property we offer five special manuscript albums. All written and above all drawn by Johan Louis Gerlagh (1735-1798).
Coming from a patrician family he must have been a distinguished and erudite man with a broad interest in the world and flora and fauna in general. He was an official of both the VOC and the WIC from around 1764.
The Albums have a content that seems scientific. The richly illustrated travelogue to the Middle East is drawn entirely in sepia. The book with the title ‘Microscopic Delights drawn after life and painted by Joh. Louis Gerlagh 1790’ is very sympathetically illustrated with numerous microscopic enlargements and confirms that he had a very broad interest and also knew how to appreciate the small. The album with elaborate drawings of animals is drawn after Georges-Louis Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle.
Each album is a summary of the sensory pleasure of an amateur artist/scientist who certainly wrote and drew with merit.
Museum Gouda has a selection of sketchbooks and drawings in its collection.
From another private collection an object that is related to science. A rare microscope made by one of the most important scientific instrument makers in the world: Edmund Culpeper (1660-1738). It concerns a so-called screw barrel microscope. Complete with various objectives and to be stored in the original sharkskin covered box. Circa 1720.