Vue d'optique - Vue intérieure de la Bourse royale à Londres

Original engraving. Vue d'optique heightened in watercolour, depicting an interior view of the Royal Exchange in London.
Vues d'optique, also called vues, perspectives or "mondo nuovo", are engravings that were highly fashionable between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They were intended to be viewed through a set of mirrors or by means of a Zograscope, an instrument consisting of a mirror and a lens. Vues d'optique can be considered the precursors to three-dimensional images and stereoscopes which enjoyed great success from the 19th century onwards. Vues d'optique appear to have emerged in the 1740s and were drawing-room entertainments. The process was first developed in Paris, then London and finally in Germany, and sought to represent - in an idealized manner - the most famous panoramas and landscapes of the Orient and Occident.
Fine impression with very fresh colours.