Katie 118

Steel glasses frames with straight arms did exist around 1900 but they were less popular than the pince-nez (popular in the middle classes) and the face à main.which was very much "en vogue" among the upper classes. Full time wear was simply "not done" so it did not matter if you had to raise one arm to keep your eyewear in position. Face à main frequently turn up in antique shops but invariably with positive lenses for reading. Here Katie is showing a rare example of a face à main fitted with lenses of minus seven. Even in a time without cars, it must have been problematic to be dependent on a face à main in that prescription. The famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt (b 1844, d 1923) did all her acting on stage and even all her public appearances without any visual aid. Her myopia was legendary. Long after her death, the lenses in several face à main that had belonged to her were examined and it turned out that their Rx was minus ten. When posing in the face à main, Katie was coping with the reverse problem, trying to produce a natural look through lenses that only created a massive blur. Around 1900, all photography was in sepia so this was used during the editing process of Katie's portrait to reproduce the nostalgic feel.