Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's Silver Microscope

It hardly looks like a microscope: a small silver plate, a single tiny lens set in a hole near the top, and a screw for moving the specimen pin in front of it. With instruments like this, the Delft draper Antonie van Leeuwenhoek became the first person to describe bacteria and other single-celled life. Only about a dozen of his microscopes survive. This one, which magnifies about 248 times, turned up in a box of doll's house items and was authenticated in 2015 by Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in Leiden, where this photo was taken. It is privately owned, so check before visiting; Boerhaave and the Deutsches Museum in Munich each hold a silver Leeuwenhoek microscope of their own.