A superb museum-quality Culpeper type microscope by Mathew Loft, c. 1735.  Like Edmund Culpeper’s first models of the 1720’s, this instrument employs draw tube focusing, body tubes of gray shagreen (polished ray skin) and gold tooled vellum, with beautifully tuned eyepiece and nosepiece of lignum vitae.  Unlike Culpeper, Loft chose to use continuous brass tripod legs, and a finely molded octagonal dark box-foot, containing a fitted drawer with complete accessories.  All reside in a pyramidal oak case.