"Jumelle Duchesse" Opera Glasses: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This is a brass instrument with pearl on the barrels, eyecups and center focus. The barrels are flared. The objective lenses are 30 mm in diameter. The length is 5 cm closed. The words “Jumelle Duchesse” appear in script the cross brace at the eye end.

The French word “Jumelle” meaning twin was widely adopted for binocular opera and field glasses in the early nineteenth century. The term “Jumelle Duchesse” was used for small but powerful opera glasses with 12 lenses, in which each eye piece and each objective was a triple achromat. Many opera glasses of this sort were made in Paris. Some were available in the United States by 1859.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1900-1930
• Object Name: opera glasses
• Object Type: opera glasses
• Other Terms: opera glasses; Opticals; Accessories Carried; Female
• Physical Description: glass (overall material)
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Physical Description: shell (overall material)
• ID Number: CS.237652.001
• catalog number: 237652.001
• accession number: 237652
• Credit Line: Evelyn May Woolston
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.