A device for the evanescent illumination of a sample, including an optical illumination element with an optical corrective element and an objective arranged downstream from the corrective element, to evanescently illuminate the sample with a supplied ray beam containing optical radiation with at least two different wavelengths. The corrective optical element has a transverse chromatic aberration which, during the illumination, leads to the optical radiation penetrating the pupil of the objective at different heights relative to the optical axis varying according to the wavelength. The corrective optical element is selected in such a way that the wavelength-related difference of the penetration depths of the radiation into the sample is reduced during the evanescent illumination.