A RARE AND HISTORICALLY INTERESTING ACCOUNT FROM MATTHEW BER...

Hammer

£900

A RARE AND HISTORICALLY INTERESTING ACCOUNT FROM MATTHEW BERGE FOR LORD NELSON, 1802

laid paper impressed with headed copperplate business details, completed in manuscript dated 9^th October 1802 with list of articles and services including Repairing a Barometer, altering to make it portable and resilvering the plates; Examining and cleaning a case of Telescopes; Repairing a Marine Barometer making a new finger screw &; A packing Case for the telescopes; a pair of shell spectacles & case; a pr of hand spectacles… with additional dates in the margins for May 10^th 1803 and August 29^th 1805 -- 6 x 8in. (15 x 20.5cm.); together with a receipt for this account blind stamped for a two-pence tax and inscribed Recieved the 2nd Septemr. 1805 of The Rt. Honble. Lord Nelson the sum of Four Pounds five Shillings & 6d / £4:5:6 for MBerge / S.Allan

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Nelson’s life and works have been exhaustively researched and evaluated since the day he died. Hundreds of books about him or aspects of his career have been produced, the earliest dating from 1805. Despite this scrutiny, the apparently innocuous document offered in this lot reveals a hitherto unknown detail – that Nelson wore and used glasses. No image of his was ever produced with him using them and no reference in either his letters or other people’s memoirs or diaries has been found to record this detail. It should come as no surprise as Nelson was almost blind in one eye and the other was fading rapidly – the ‘hand spectacles or quizzing glasses are further testament to his failing sight, although neither pair seem to have survived. He seems to have opened an account with Matthew Berge in 1802. Berge had inherited the premises and workshops of the late Jesse Ramsden, perhaps London’s foremost instrument maker at the time of his death in 1800. Ramsden was also son-in-law to the great optician Peter Dollond and Dollonds is thought likely to have provided the optics for Ramsden/Berge products. The list includes a case of telescopes for cleaning, these were possibly Dollond products and a similar-sounding set were sold by these Rooms (30.4.14 lot 229) – as telescopes associated with Nelson frequently surface with spurious attribution, it is pleasing to find confirmation he used one of London’s top makers for his own use.