A selection of kaleidoscopes bound with inlaid and tooled leather. These kaleidoscopes do not contain loose elements for pattern-making but instead a lens and prism make patterns from one’s surroundings.
The kaleidoscope was invented by Professor Sir David Brewster in 1816 at St Andrew’s University, Fife.
Four views of a kaleidoscope.
This kaleidoscope was made for the first exhibition of the opening of the former home of William Blake as a small museum. Each contributor was asked to design and make something which in some way reflected Blake either visually or in the use of his words.
Bound in goatskins and calfskins with some modelling in three dimensions.
Two kaleidoscopes decorated by representations of electron microscope images produced during several years spent working at the Natural History Museum.
Bound in goatskins and alum tawed goatskin.
A further collection of kaleidoscopes.
One bound to commission for a Swiss antiques dealer was a group gift to one of their partners bearing the nickname ‘hot lizard’ hence the imagery of lizards – one is seen crawling out of the flames. Two were commissioned as Christmas gifts for the grand-children of Neale Albert, another for an artist in New York who specialises in figurative painting and yet another commissioned for Neale Albert secretly for his wife. It represents his miniature book collection.