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Instead of the confinement of a studio or workshop, the 15th plate in Nova Reperta represents the invention of eyeglasses at a spectacle shop on a street filled with vendors. Commerce in instruments is not limited to the exchange between the optician and the bearded old man in the left foreground. Pairs of bow spectacles multiply in the scene and rest firmly on the nose of the on-looking customer, the two scholars at the opposite shop, the seated tailor, and the distant cobbler, a sign of their ready availability and wide-ranging utility in everyday life. At the upper center, an advertising banner flies conspicuously midair. Eyeglasses have become a well-traded commodity.
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Hans Collaert II
Flemish, 1566–1628
after Johannes Stradanus (Jan Van der Straet)
Flemish, 1523 - 1605
Invention of Eyeglasses (Conspicilla), Plate 15
c. 1600
Engraving
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation
1998.9.15
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