Signature:
SAYDE / OPTICIEN / DU ROY / A PARIS” written over “DOLLOND / LONDON
Signature Notes:
Inscriptions:
No stand present.
Collection:
Louwman Collection of Historic Telescopes
Accession #:
LC 53
Sources:
Louwman, P.J.K., and Zuidervaart, H.J., "A Certain Instrument to See Far: Four Centuries of Styling the Telescope Illustrated by a Selection of Treasures from the Louwman Collection of Historic Telescopes". Wassenaar, 2009. p.74. #56.
Louwman, P.J.K., and Zuidervaart, H.J., "A Certain Instrument for Seeing Far: Four Centuries of Styling the Telescope Illustrated by a Selection of Treasures from the Louwman Collection of Historic Telescopes". Wassenaar, 2013. p.81. #53.
Public Notes:
"English telescope, retailed in France. Main tube covered with green coloured ray skin. Three drawtubes covered with white parchment. Brass ferrules with nicks and fittings with protective lids. Length 25-68 cm, Ø 4 cm. Signed: ‘SAYDE / OPTICIEN / DU ROY / A PARIS’. Under this signature and transverse to it the original signature ‘DOLLOND / LONDON’ is still visible, an unmistakable proof of the retail of English instruments on the continent in the second half of the eighteenth century.
In 1760 the journal Mercure de Francelists the Paris ‘bijoutier’ « Saïde » as « opticien de la Roi » In 1769 he is named as « le sieur Sayde, opticien de la Reine, à Paris, quai des Morfondus ». At that time he was a retailer of English glass and crystal. His shop is described in the ""Recueil des pieces qui ont remporte des prix de l’Académie royale, volume 7 (1769), 7 & 9"". Marc Sayde was married with Marie-Claude Lemoyne. In 1779 they lived at the ‘Rue du Temple’. That year they filed in a protest to the sudden marriage of their 21-year old daughter to an Italian comedian.
On a second, almost identical specimen in the Louwman-collection (length 20-52 cm, Ø 3.5 cm) the original English signature has been removed invisibly . Another hand held telescope of English manufacture carrying the signature ‘Sayde’ is in the collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich (NAV1618)" (Louwman and Zuidervaart, 2013).
Dioptrice is made possible by the generous
support of the National Science Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, the Program in the History and
Philosophy of Science at the University of Notre Dame, and the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum.
