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The On-Line Museum and Encyclopedia of Vision Aids.
April 6, 2006 Wall Street Journal featured antiquespectacles.com on the front page. |
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| Vision Aids are amazing! Their history is truly fascinating! As works of art, they have a beauty all their own! | |||
| Certainly one of the most significant inventions of all time, they are symbols of man's incredible ingenuity and craftsmanship! | |||
| Embrace the profound impact that spectacles alone have had on the human experience over the past 730 years. | |||
| Yet they are taken for granted by nearly everyone worldwide! | |||
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Starting with the Introduction and Goals, wander through this non-commercial, not for profit, website. You may find it enlightening and informative to learn about these wonderful items many of us use daily. Look at the Table of Contents. This website is the result of the collaboration of International educators and is for everyone’s interest and enjoyment. It is the place where we celebrate vision aids, (and the optical lens), especially spectacles. The Real Numbers of this website keep growing because Interesting Topics and Slideshows are added regularly. All this would not have been possible without the wonderful support of many noteworthy Contributing Individuals and Participating Institutions. To improve navigation of the website, we have added Quick Links for people with special interests. |
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![]() Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860), Portrait of Henry Robinson, oil on paper, mounted on canvas, c.1816-1820, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Bayou Bend Collection, gift of the Theta Charity Antiques Show. |
![]() Opera glasses, the ocular rings and adjusting ring are mother of pearl, the objective tubes are painted, circa 1880-1920. A most fantastic and beautiful instrument in the Fouretier Collection |
![]() Forehead beam glasses, silver, possibly produced by important German instrument and spectacles maker "M. Gottfried Tauber" from Leipzig, circa 1820, unusual. The idea was to hold the lenses free from the nose, so this is not considered a variation of the Adams' Patent of 1797, from the Tee Museum, Norden, Germany. |
![]() “Hope for our World”, a quilt by Hollis Chatelain, won Best of Show award at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, October-Nov 2007, Archbishop Desmond Tutu is standing in a field with children from everywhere approaching him like a Pied Piper who is talking about world peace and our children’s future, hand dye-painted with thickened fiber reactive dyes, machine quilted, 81” x 81” |
Pietro di Giovanni d'Ambrogio (1410-1449), San Bernardino da Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena, Italy |
![]() Breviarium Romanum, dated 1794, with bow spectacles inside the front cover probably from 100 years earlier, Museo dell'Occhiale, Pieve di Cadore |
![]() Bow spectacles in a shagreen-covered wooden case for two, one is leather-framed with a steel arch while the other is a horn frame with a steel arch, circa 1700 |
![]() “Remembering in the Spring”, an award-winning quilt displayed at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, October-Nov 2007, created by quilt artist Wendy Butler Berns as a tribute to her mother, picture image appliqué by machine and free motion machine embellished, 45" x 41". |
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Move your mouse over any of the images in this website
for a larger view. The images on this page are replaced several times a year. Previously used images are available in a separate slide show. |
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