Accession No
0520
Brief Description
spectacles, temple with eye-shade, 1870 (c)
Origin
Maker
Class
optical
Earliest Date
1870
Latest Date
1870
Inscription Date
Material
organic (tortoise shell); glass; cloth (silk)
Dimensions
length 129mm; breadth 30mm; thickness 18mm
Special Collection
Robert Whipple collection
Provenance
Purchased from T.H. Court on 28/05/1927.
Inscription
Description Notes
Tortoise shell; oval pale green/blue lenses. K-bridge straight side pieces with loop ends. Green silk eye-shade hinges from the top of the frames.
Condition: good; complete.
References
Events
Description
Spectacles
Usually consisting of a pair of lenses held in a frame, spectacles may have originated in the ancient civilizations of China and the Mediterranean, but early forms were crude. It was only in the 18th century that the grinding of lenses became sufficiently advanced to make then really effective for correcting sight defects. In order to correct for near sightedness, the lenses must be concave, which diverges the rays of light (angles them apart), and for long sightedness they must be convex, to angle the rays of light together.
Spectacles are not solely used for defective eyesight; the Inuit and the Yupik use wooden spectacles with very small slits in them to reduce the glare from snow and ice.
18/10/2002
Created by: Saffron Clackson on 18/10/2002
FM:42555
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