Nachet Opera Glasses
date: label: date made
content: 1850-1900
notes: label: Description
content: This is a small and light-weight instrument with an aluminum frame, and dark leather on the barrels. The center focus and eyecups are black, possibly celluloid. The objective lenses are 20 mm diameter. The length is 3.4 cm closed. The left eyecup is marked “NACHET / OPTICIEN.” The right one is marked “10 RUE DE LA PAIX / PARIS.” The cross brace at the objective end is marked “C. J. MYERS.”
label: Description
content: Aluminum opera glasses could be had from high-end dealers by 1860. This example came to the Smithsonian in 1922, in the large bequest of Cassie Mason Myers Julian James. They probably belonged to her mother, Catalina Juliana Mason Myers (1824-1905), a wealthy woman who visited Paris in the 1860s.
label: Description
content: The Nachet signature refers Camille Joseph Nachet (1839-1929), an optician who showed telemeters at international exhibition of 1889, and who received a patent for a stereo-chromoscope in 1894. His father Camille Sebastien Nachet, and his brother Jean Alfred Nachet, were famous microscope makers.
label: Description
content: Date: second half of nineteenth century
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Costume
label: See more items in
content: Clothing & Accessories
label: See more items in
content: Optics
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Estate of Cassie Mason Myers Julian-James
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CS.033466
label: catalog number
content: 033466
label: accession number
content: 70138
objectType: label: Object Name
content: opera glasses
label: Object Type
content: opera glasses
label: Other Terms
content: opera glasses; Opticals; Accessories Carried; Female
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: fabric (cord material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (objective lense material)
label: Physical Description
content: leather (barrel material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (rims material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (bridge material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (frame material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (eyepiece material)