Vue d'optique - Vue des bains chinois prise du boulevart des Capucines

Original engraving. Optical view heightened in watercolour, depicting a view of the Chinese baths taken from the Boulevard des Capucines.
Optical views, also called views, perspectives or "mondo nuovo", are engravings very much in vogue between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They were intended to be observed through a set of several mirrors or by means of a Zograscope, an instrument consisting of a mirror and a lens. Optical views can be considered the precursors of three-dimensional images and stereoscopes which enjoyed great success from the 19th century onwards. Optical views seem to appear in the 1740s and were drawing-room entertainments. The process was first developed in Paris, then London and finally in Germany and was devoted to representing - in an idealized manner - the most famous panoramas and landscapes of East and West.
Some scattered worming and three dampstains at the bottom of the plate.