model of the eye
Date: circa 1765
Inventory Number: 0011
Classification: Eye Model
Subject:
Attributed to: Benjamin Martin (1704 - 1782)
Cultural Region:
Place of Origin:
Dimensions:
23.3 x 8.5 x 8.5 cm (9 3/16 x 3 3/8 x 3 3/8 in.)
Accessories: Display mount made by J. Paul Getty Museum for exhibition "Devices of Wonder"
Bibliography:
The Apparatus of Science at Harvard, 1765-1800
Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen
Description:
A brass sphere stands on a turned brass post and base. A lens is on one side of the sphere, and a piece of frosted glass is on the other. They are both mounted in flanges and screwed in the sphere.
In Collection(s)
Signedunsigned
FunctionLooking from behind the frosted screen, the model produces an inverted and reversed image, just as it would appear on the retina of the eye. It is, in other words, a camera obscura.
Historical AttributesBenjamin Martin's invoice of instruments shipped to Harvard in August of 1765 included "an Artificial Eye in Brass" for £2.2.0. It is the only such model mentioned in any of the early inventories of Harvard College-owned equipment.
Published ReferencesDavid P. Wheatland, The Apparatus of Science at Harvard, 1765-1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), 118.
Barbara Maria Stafford and Frances Terpak, Devices of Wonder: From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2001), 144, fig. 21, 365, no. 3.