Leah 205

A fine, nostalgic portrait of Leah posing in "fin de siècle" style, between 1890 and 1900. Leah posed in two face à main from my collection. one for long sight and this one for considerable short sight, minus seven. Imagine the trouble, being quite shortsighted in those days and having to raise one arm to see things clearly! It has to be said that glasses with straight arms did exist in the 1890's but these were not fashionable among the upper classes where the code was against full time wear. The famous French actress Sarah Bernhard (1844 - 1923) had severe myopia but she was never seen sporting her face à main in public, let alone on stage. She did use her face à main in private surroundings and it seems that she had quite a collection of them. Several of her face à main have surfaced and they are on display in the Pierre Marly Museum in Paris. Marly, a famous glasses designer, established that Bernhard's legendary myopia was no less than minus ten.

Here Leah playfully uses the face à main as a monocle, showing the effect of the minus seven lens on the size of her right ear while playing with her pearl chain with her free hand. Marvelous posing and one of the highlights of this remarkable photo shoot. The only women venturing into this style of posing during the 1890's were actresses and then only a few of them. Leah is doing quite well as a photo model but I will not be surprised if we hear from her as an actress within a few years.