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Title(s):
[Claude Lorrain filters].
Additional Title(s):

[Claude Lorrain glasses]

[Claude glasses]
Published/Created:
[Great Britain?], [mid-19th century?]
Physical Description:
5 Claude Lorrain filters : colored glass, in tortoiseshell framework ; 6.1 x 2.8 x 1.6 cm.
Holdings:
Rare Books and Manuscripts
ND1505 .C9 1850 Flat
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
[Request]
Copyright Status:
Copyright Not Evaluated
Classification:
Three-Dimensional Artifacts
Notes:
Arnaud Maillet (in The Claude glass, 2004) argues that the present filters are most aptly termed Claude glasses. Nonetheless, the term "Claude glass" has more frequently been used to describe the dark-tinted mirrors, slightly convex in shape, used as drawing aids by 17th and 18th century artists, travelers, and amateurs of landscape painting.
Restricted fragile material. Use requires permission of the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
Maillet, A. Claude glass, p. 31-35
Rosenthal, J.W. Spectacles and other vision aids, p. 274-276
Pocket set of Claude Lorrain filters, probably manufactured in Great Britain in the mid-19th century. The set comprises five colored glass filters (green, yellow, blue, purple, and dark orange), each about 2.5 cm in diameter and framed on arms of tortoiseshell, each of which in turn can be pivoted fan-like from out of a small tortoiseshell case.
The filters are flat and thin and do not distort the form of objects viewed through them. According to a contemporary account, they were useful "for producing a great variety of colors and showing their combination; it also will be found both pleasing and useful for viewing eclipses, clouds, landscapes, &c." (Benjamin Pike. Illustrated descriptive catalogue of optical, mathematical, and philosophical instruments. New York, 1856).
Subject Terms:
Artists' tools.
Landscape painting -- Technique.
Painting -- Technique.
Form/Genre:
Claude glasses.
Claude Lorrain filters.
Light filters.
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