A piece of taffeta Martin Frobene Ledermuller

Study of a fragment of colour-changing taffeta viewed by microscope, under magnification. Showing the weave of the silk fabric, with a circled inset detail illustrating the cloth at normal size, to give scale.

Plate 24 from Amusement microscopique, tant pour l'esprit que pour les yeux, contenant... estampes... d'apres nature...by Martin Frobene Ledermuller, plates volume (Adam Wolfgang Winterschmidt, Nuremburg, 1764).

Inscribed above: ‘TAB.XXIV.’

The accompanying text is headed: ‘Table XXIV. Un bout de Tafetas changeant.’ The author comments that the observation was occasioned by a letter, stating: ‘J evous somme ici de votre parole, en vous priant de vouloir bien examiner l’Echantillan de Tafetas changeat, ci-joint. Vous allés rire de ma Fantaisie. Mais de quell Oeil que Vous puissiés regarder cette Minucie, je Vous jure, que je connois plusieres Savans, à qui j’ai demandé, si savoient bien la Cause de cette Apparence changeante ou de cette Refraction de Raions…’ [I hold you to your word, begging you to be good enough to examine the changing taffeta sample, attached. You will laugh at my fantasy. But whatever eye might look at this fragment, I swear to you, that I know several savants, whom I asked, if they knew the cause of its changing appearance or its refraction of rays ...]

Martin Frobene [Frobenius] Ledermuller (1719-1769) German naturalist was employed in various capacities as a notary, turning to microscope studies after an illness induced temporary deafness.