This beautifully embroidered spectacle case was given to Katie Naylor by her Grandmother. It was made in the late Victorian era, sometime around the 1890s.
It illustrates beautifully the fine needlework young women of the time aspired to and this is a particularly fine example of exquisite detailed needlework using gold thread and semi-precious stones.
It's also unusual because spectacles would not have been commonplace at that time.
Spectacle case
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Comments
"spectacles would not have been commonplace at that time".
Yes and no. The science of testing of sight and the technology of producing prescribed lenses, especially for astigmatism, were well under way then but those spectacles would have been less common.
Standard powered 'ready readers' were very common and date from the earliest record of Bacon ~1280.
Originals made of leather, wood and horn did not last but metal framed spectacles survive in many forms from over the last few hundred years.