The term “vue d’optique” or “perspective view” is used for describing a very special genre of hand coloured copper engravings. Originating in England it became widely produced in Europe during the second half of the 18th Century.
“Perspective views” are usually views of cities around the world. These were shown in “peep boxes”, a special viewer that contained a magnifying lense which gave the viewer the impression of three dimensional perception. Well-to-do people bought such viewing machines for their families and began collecting the vue d’optique engravings showing them at home like a slide show would be shown.
Perspective view prints were usually colored quite boldly before they were sold. Black and white samples are the exception and rather rare. They also have more or less the same format and size because they had to fit the peep boxes. The title of a view was not always, but quite frequently printed in several languages and often repeated above the view in inverted writing which was corrected by the lens for the viewer.
Copper engravings completed by a Dutch engraver Michael Burghers for Robert Plots’, ‘The Natural History of Staffordshire’.
Plot (1640-1696) was an Oxford scholar and the first curator of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
He was influential in moving the traditional method of county studies to a new direction with his emphasis on natural history.
His most influential books were,’The Natural History of Oxfordshire, being an essay towards the Natural History of England’ published in 1677 and ‘The Natural History of Staffordshire’ published in 1686.
