Opera-Glasses

Everything about the opera conveys refined elegance and glamour, from the grand stage productions with rich, opulent sets and fairy-tale gowns to the rows of well-turned- out ladies and gentlemen peering through opera glasses.

The earliest opera glasses, which appeared in London as early as 1730, took the form of a long collapsible telescope, often covered in enamel, gemstones, ivory, or hand- painted with popular artistic images of the time. The first handheld version of opera glasses showed up in Vienna in 1823. Known as theater binoculars or Galilean binoculars (named for Italian inventor and philosopher Galileo), they were constructed of two telescopes with a bridge in the center that could be adjusted independently to achieve proper focus.

By the mid-19th century, opera glasses had become must-have fashion accessories for wealthy theater-goers. They would ultimately be intricately decorated, encrusted with fine jewels, and attached to long handles before evolving into the modern opera glasses so appreciated today. Antique pairs of opera glasses are often found on the auction block. Especially popular are fine jeweler-crafted precious metal and enameled examples and mother of pearl opera glasses by the likes of Parisian maker Lemaire.

Quick Facts

• In 2009 at Christie's in New York, a pair of circa 1880 carved ivory opera glasses trimmed in gold and enamel sold for $25,000
• In 2002, opera glasses carried into Ford's Theatre by President Lincoln the night of his assassination—believed to have fallen from his hand after he was fatally shot—sold for $424,000 at a Christie's New York auction
A pair of unsigned enamel and gilt opera glasses with mother-of-pearl eye pieces in a Cartier case sold at a 2011 Bonhams auction in London for £2,250