Collecting eyes

Kaspar Mulder could not avoid the crochet needle that was hurled at him. The pointy end of it pierced this bottom lid. The doctor in Utrecht said: ‘Either the wound heals, or you’ll go blind in both eyes.’ Faced with this dilemma, Kaspar, only fifteen years old at the time, opted to remove the injured eye. The woman that gifted this eye to Museum Boerhaave was his sister.

Kaspar lived his life apparently unhindered by his handicap: he became chief of operations in a sugar factory in the Dutch Indies, and his good eye would function perfectly until his death in 1969 (at 73 years old). While he was alive, Kaspar curated a huge collection of fake eyes: the man that wouldn’t spare his eye as a boy, now wanted as many of them as possible. He would even wear his favourite one at night. One can’t help but wonder why. Was it so that he would look decent, in the event that he would die in his sleep? Or so that he would always wake up looking presentable?