Flintglas voor een astronomische kijker van Chance Brothers and Co op de Great Exhibition van 1851 in Londen 1851

Here we have a photograph by C.M. Ferrier and F. von Martens of a flint glass lens, made for an astronomical telescope by Chance Brothers and Co, showcased at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. The Great Exhibition was a celebration of industry and empire, and this lens embodies both. It speaks to Victorian Britain's ambitions to dominate not just the Earth, but also the heavens. What did it mean to look through this glass? To have the power to see further than ever before? The clean, almost clinical, aesthetic mirrors the Victorian obsession with scientific progress. It suggests a world made knowable through empirical observation. But there's also a sense of something more, an intimation of the sublime, of confronting the vastness of the universe. The image invites us to reflect on the complex interplay between science, ambition, and the human desire to understand our place in the cosmos.