Reflecting microscope, S.J. Rienks, Ferweradeel, 1826
Inv V07166

The instrument-maker Sieds J. Rienks was originally a farm labourer in the extreme north of Friesland. He was one of a group of Frisian men, all of whom had by their own efforts trained themselves in the pursuit of science and in the instrument-maker's craft. Rienks concentrated mainly on the grinding of lenses, which he used in telescopes and microscopes. His reflecting microscopes were not bad, and that was mainly because he incorporated tiny mirrors in them, but when he ventured to grind large mirrors, he overextended himself. The commission from the Leiden Observatory for the construction of a reflecting telescope with a diameter of 13 feet (approximately 4 metres), together with his fellow-Frisian self-made partner and teacher Arjen Roelofs, was a disastrous failure. The instrument failed dismally to live up to expectations and was dismantled only twenty years later and the brass sold for scrap.