Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
By 1805
Primary Source Reference:
Guide to the Philadelphia Museum (Philadelphia, 1805), p. 4
Notes:
A nyctalops is a person affected by nyctalopia, or night blindness.
"Hervey, Miss (fl. 1800 to 1816?), oddity. Miss Hervey, 'The Beautiful Nyctalops'" -- an abiness who had normal vision in the daytime but was blind at night -- was exhibited in Brookes's Original Menagerie, No. 242 Piccadilly, in May 1800. A portrait of her, by an unknown engraver was published as a plate to La Belle Assembléein November 1816. Ttwo other portraits by anonymous engravers -- one titled 'The Beautiful Albiness' and the other in color -- were published without dates." Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, Edward A. Langhans, A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800, vol. 7 (Carbondale, Ill., 1987), p. 280
