This type C medium-sized research microscope was manufactured by Ernst Leitz of Wetzlar, Germany. Featuring a black enamel horseshoe-shaped base and arm, this microscope also includes a reflecting mirror, eye piece, tube, stage with scale and brass clips. The stage moves up and down for focusing.

The company, formerly Ernst Leitz GmbH, is now three companies: Leica Camera AG, Leica Geosystems AG, and Leica Microsystems AG, producing cameras, geosurvey equipment and microscopes, respectively.

The company of Ernst Leitz had its origin in the Optical Institute founded by Karl Kellner in Wetzlar, Germany. The earlier Leitz trade catalogs give the date of establishment as 1850 but by the early twentieth century, Leitz publications reference the date as 1849. Telescopes were the main product of the early company, but in the 1850s, microscopes became the principal product.

During World War I, the German government forced the Leitz company to convert to war production. During World War II, however, Max Berek, the renown optical scientist at Leitz, refused to cooperate with the Nazi party. The German government stripped him of his professorship, but it was reinstated in 1946. During the 1930s and 1940s, Ernst Leitz II and his daughter Dr. Elsie Kuehn-Leitz, both Protestant Christians, arranged for hundreds of Jewish employees and their families to get out of Germany, thus escaping the Holocaust.