?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 10,000
Zahn, Johann (1641-1707) Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus sive Telescopium.
Wurzburg: Quirinus Heyl, 1685-1686.
First edition, folio, three parts in one volume, each title page printed in red and black, illustrated with added engraved general title, no portrait present in this copy, five folding engravings, twenty-six full-paged engravings, forty-one text engravings (many full-paged), and eight folding typographical tables; bound in full contemporary parchment over boards, contents generally good, 12 x 8 in.
Zahn's important work on the telescope treats the subject of optics in detail at the moment of its great flourishing. Grinding lenses with precision and compounding their power brought everything from distant galaxies to microscopic lifeforms into focus. Imagine the excitement of discovery in this period. Even as modern people, we marvel at the world we see at the other end of the lens. Zahn also describes the camera obscura, lantern slides, and projection. With the right arrangement of lenses and mirrors, he showed how to project the image seen through a telescope or microscope onto a wall, along with other inventions, including a plan for a portable camera 150 years before a practical model was built.
Garrison-Morton 263; Krivatsy 13208; Waller 11455; Norman 2278; the first edition is rare at auction.
