object of the month

​​Lorgnettes and glasses

Inventory number 2012.0.310

​ Lorgnettes or pince-nez or binoculars, invented by English optician Edward Scarlett around 1730, had two glasses that adjusted by pinching the nose. 

Men could attach it to their waistcoat button and women to a brooch. Their use was not generalized. 

The glasses exhibited at the museum have curved branches that sit on the ears. Until the mid-19th century, the branches were straight. 

If corrective lenses were tried out as early as the Middle Ages, late 13th century in Italy, it was not until the 19th century that the wearing of glasses became democratized when they were manufactured in a more industrial way, especially in the Jura.