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Issues of 2008

The opera glasses and lorgnettes

The today▓s fashion in its nostalgic longing towards Historism and theatre again and again returns to the objects that seemed to sink into oblivion after their sheer popularity in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. Together with contemporary lorgnettes and minodieres designed by the world top jewelers, the antiquities that previously were interesting only to a narrow circle of collectors, are today of the great demand.

Among the optic antiquities today greatly sought for, there are the ones widely used by theatric fans and high society beaus of the previous epochs. Opera binoculars, spy-glasses and even their exotic relatives of lorgnettes and monoculars experience today their revival.

Theatric telescopic glass. France. Late 19th Century. Brass, mother of pearl, guilding [zoom (20k)]

The ancient physicists knew already that the crystal ball could magnify the scale of the objects when looking on them through it. Seneca marked that it was easier to read a text written in small letters using such a ball. The ancient epoch experience was summarized and further developed by an Arab encyclopaedist-scientist, Abu Ali al-Hasan Ibn-al-Haytham, later known in Europe as Alhacen. His treatise on optics ⌠Kitab al-Manasir■, accomplished in the early 11th century, was translated into Latin in 1270 and formed a basis for further scientific progress in this field in Europe.

The first real optical lenses were produced in Italy in the mid-13th century. The first known two-lenses optical devices are dated back to the 13th century.

A mighty impetus to the development of the applied optics resulted from the works by Galilei. His work ⌠Sidereus Nuncius■ drove to the activity of grinding and polishing lenses quite different groups of people: scientists, royal persons, priests, craftsmen and doctors. Military men and sailors acquired the new powerful instruments as well as the astronomers and biologists, and the high society got a new object of fashion. To possess a such an item in 1680, was a sign of economic welfare, and at the same time it could undermine it, because in the epoch when an average income of a French bourgeois amounted to 180 livres, a gilded or a porcelain lorgnette often was priced in a range of 300√900 livres.

It is interesting that the word ⌠lorgnette■ was used in France in course of the four centuries period for naming rather different optical devices ranging from the simple monoculars to the portable glasses with handle and powerful binoculars (lorgnette double).The English term ⌠glass■ also played such a universal role. This fact makes it hard to exactly specify what particular instrument was meant in one or another particular episode. The versatility of terminology corresponds to the versatility of the optical lens applications. On the early stage (end of the 16th √ early 19th centuries), the two main forms were widespread: the monocular and the lorgnette itself (the portable glasses with handle).

Apart from it, the lenses were mounted onto mostly unexpected articles. They were secured to brims of hats, inserted into casings of fans and handles of walking sticks. Even snuffboxes of the 18th√19th centuries were often provided with monocular glasses.

The ⌠optical fans■ are the items of particular interest. The earliest pieces featured the lenses mounted on handles (side panels). Afterwards, they moved to the expanded screen, which permitted to a shy lady to inspect the subject of interest covering her own face. Such kind of fans was popular in the French royal court in 1782, when the Heir to the Russian throne, Grand Prince Pavel Petrovich (the future Emperor Paul I), visited France under the alias of the Count du Nord. Joung Queen Marie-Antoinette after having a look at the wife of the Grand Prince, told her in a friendly manner: ⌠The Princess, it looks like we have the same drawback of being shortsighted, I fight this drawback by installing a lorgnette into my fan. Look, will this one fit your eyes?■ After it, a magnificent fan decorated with diamonds was presented to the royal guest and accepted with a lot of thanks. The fashion changed in course of the time, and the optical fans changed accordingly. Mirrors, looking holes supplied with glasses or without them, all these devices permitted to the better sex to observe themselves staying unnoticed.

Opera glasses. West Europe. Late 19th Century √ early 20th Century. Copper alloy, engraving, glass, guilding [zoom (62k)]

However, this magnitude of optic devices was meant not only for the compensation of bad vision. The development of the theatre, opera and other kinds of shows promoted spreading of optic instruments. The hard╛core theatric goers, however, paid their attention not only to the performance. In 1745, one lady complained: ⌠As soon as I occupied my seat in the theatre, I noticed a dozen of glasses aimed at my person■. The fashion of using a lorgnette for other persons observing came to salons and to the streets of the cities. In 1793, Sebastian Mercier, a popular journalist of that period, in his ⌠Lorgneures■ article, published in the magazine ⌠Tableau de Paris■, informs: ⌠Paris is full of these lorgneures, staring at you imprinting your person on their minds with their intense fixed eyes. This habit is so widespread that is not considered as being something improper. Ladies do not get nervous, being closely scrutinized when entering the theatre or during the walk. It will be strange if it would be so, for there is a lot of such lorgneures among these ladies themselves■.

The lorgnettes became widespread in 1785, when an English scientist, George Adams, developed its frame with a handle on the temporal side. In 1825, a useful innovation for these developed by Robert Bate became patent No 5124. His outstanding invention was the double-spring lorgnette, an ⌠improved spectacle folded to form a single eyeglass■.

At the end of the 18th century, a new personage appeared on the stage of the European world of fashion. Contrary to the amateure-lorgneure, he used the weapon of the lorgnette in a professional manner, often making a lethal weapon of it. This is the type of the English ⌠dandy■, the type that rapidly propagated to the whole European continent. The dandyism trend being symbolized by the person of George ⌠Beau■ Brummel. In the middle of the 19th century, Britain was subjected to the invasion of the ⌠macaroni■, the glamour boys with long hairdos that traveled on the Continent, wore exotic dresses and used spying-glasses.

It looks that these were both the quizzing glasses (monoglasses) and lorgnettes serving for the open scrutinizing as well as the so-called ⌠jealousy glasses■ ≈ the devices for snooping for the hidden secrets. The latter comprised a trivial monoglass tube, having a side hole and a diagonal mirror mounted inside. This device permitted to monitor the audience, while for the side-viewer, it looked as though you were observing the act on the stage. Dandies cultivated the manner of screwed up looking. The shortsightedness turned to be a fashionable flaw, monoculars and lorgnettes being mandatory accessories. Around that time, an Parisian optician, Chevalier, presented the binocular theatric glasses with 32-times magnification power.

You must not, however, mistake the power of this shortsighted vision, because a dandy can mark even the tiniest details and the result can be disastrous. The contemptuous scrutinizing, or deliberate unrecognizing was enough to ruin one▓s reputation in the high society forever. Such silent manifestation of the words ⌠this will never do!■ often needed a solid technical back up. For example, the St. Peterburg beaus used to walked around with their hair coifed, wearing glasses and also carrying lorgnettes and sometimes even monoculars...■. The lorgnette could also be used for flirtation, which then could get a rather risky character...

The long history and high popularity of the lorgnette in Russia was assisted by many factors. For example, in the epoch of Emperor Alexander I, the spectacles were considered to be the attribute of a revolutionary thinking person. So, wearing them was practically prohibited in the imperial court. The tsar himself used a lorgnette and had a habit of raising it to his eyes in a coquettish manner from time to time. He kept his lorgnette in the fold of the cuff of his military coat. He was both very shortsighted and very absentminded: the lorgnette often fell on the ground and got broken nearly every day. One of his lorgnettes is kept today in the Armoury of the Moscow Kremlin. It is broken.

Opera glasses. England. Circa 1875. Copper, Silver, glass [zoom (37k)]

Apart from the direct banning, psychological factors were of the decisive importance. Young persons abstained from wearing glasses that were considered to be an attribute of the elder people, making the man▓s face, according to Edgar Poe, looking oldish, stiff and even hypocritical. At the same time, the lorgnette, contrary to the glasses and monoculars was easy in operation, elegant and looked more like a toy or a decoration than like a device for the correction of vision. That▓s why the lorgnette remained popular even after the emerging of the binoculars.

The first experimental binoculars appeared nearly simultaneously with the telescopic monoculars in the early 17th century. However, they did not become widely used till 1800 due to the underdeveloped technology. The earliest achievements in this field were connected with the name of Voigtlander. Johann Christoph Voigtlander founded an optical company in Vienna in 1756. His son, Johann Friedrich, inherited him. In 1807, he produced the theatric binoculars on the base of the monocular tube. The only survived item by this maker is dated back to 1823. It is possible, however, that the production of these items started by a decade earlier.

In 1823, the ⌠Journal de Dames et de la Mode■ magazine remarked: ⌠A bunch of violets, embroidered kerchief, big opera glasses and a phial with smelling salt are the four things that a lady of fashion must have in the theatre.■ This phrase proves that these devices had success in spite of the high price and a number of drawbacks. The early optical instruments featured two kinds of distortion (aberration): the spherical one connected with the deflection of rays being stronger in the center than near the edges and the chromatic one connected with the refraction of light near the edges of the lens producing the halo effect. However, the first achromatic lenses were produced around the middle of the 18th century. The decisive break-through in the optical devices was made in 1870 by a German physicist, Ernst Abbe, who worked for Carl Zeiss. On the base of his studies, a binocular prism was developed, permitting to reach the required magnifying grade without considerable elongation of the device and adjust the sharpness of image without considerable varying the length of the device.

By the late 19th century, the opera glasses transformed into powerful and precise devices, which were far more handy than the monoculars and put the competitive pressure on them. As well as the optical devices from the earlier times, they were decorated with plaques of mother of pearl, horn and ivory, and guilded silvered and enameled in rich manner. Paris turned to be the centre of the production of this ⌠luxury, affordable to the general public■. Such brands as ⌠Lamaire■ and ⌠Bautain Brevete■, supplied comparatively cheap elegant articles to the clients all over the world.

In Russia, however, also there were such companies. The major shops of the St. Petersburg opticians were located on Nevsky Avenue, opposite Gostinny Dvor. The shop of the J.E. Mielck Company was located at No. 46, Nevsky Avenue. The Company was founded in 1848 by Johann Mielck. Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna were among the clients of the shop selling spectacles and lorgnettes. The optical shop of Ivan Urlaub was located at No.44, Nevsky Avenue. The Company supplied apart from optical medical instruments, marine and field binoculars, lorgnettes and glasses. The biggest and oldest Moscow supplier was Tryndyn▓s, founded in 1809. The optical instruments produced by Faberge apart from the highest grade of craftsmanship and most expensive materials were characterized by the superb quality of artistic design, being real masterpieces of jewelry art. The elegant lorgnettes by Heinrich Wigstrem executed in gold and enamels and magnificent binoculars in the Lois XVth style by Mikhail Perkhin prove these words.