Trial spectacle frame, 1850-1900

The first spectacles appeared in the thirteenth century. At that time there were as yet no specialist shops where you could have your eyes tested and where you were then prescribed the lenses suitable for you. In practice the visually impaired had to try on various spectacles at the stalls of travelling merchants and decided for themselves through which pair they could see best. Only after 1858 did aids become available for measuring the defective sight of the visually impaired. This trial pair of spectacles is an example of such an aid. By sliding a succession of lenses of different strengths into the frames the extent of the defective sight could be determined. Meanwhile spectacles besides being an aid had also become a fashion object. Consequently hundreds of different spectacle frames have been devised in the course of time.