Amsterdam – Herengracht
The glorious days of a centre of the world
Detail
Date of this view: 1770
Dimensions (including margins): 42,4 x 31 cm
Condition: good/very good. Sharp copper engraving printed on strong paper. Original colouring. Wide margins. Top and bottom margins previously professionally restored (hardly visible at front).
Condition rating: A
Verso: blank
In stock
Optica prints
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were many popular specialty establishments in Paris, Augsburg and London which produced optical viewing devices and special engravings to be viewed through them. In the 18th century the optical print or vue optique came into existence, whose exaggerated converging lines were intended to produce the optical illusion of deep recession. The viewing devices for which these perspective prints were produced consisted of a lens and a mirror, this requiring the use of reversed or mirror-image pictures.
Original title of this print: “De Heere gragt van de Spiegel straat ziende naa de Leydse gragt”
Texts in mirror writing in Dutch, Latin, French and German.
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