Title: Vue perspective de la célèbre Eglise de Chartres

Dimensions:  Sheet: 19-5/8"W x 13"H

                        Plate impression: 18-1/4"W x 11-5/8"H

The engraver: À Paris chez Basset, rue St. Jacques au coin de la rue des Mathurins, à Ste. Genevieve.

Description:

This auction is for a hand colored Vue d’Optique engraving depicting la Cathedrale de Notre-Dame de Chartres.  I am showing two versions of the print.  The first is as it naturally appears.  The second is flipped horizontally, as it would appear in a viewer that presents a mirror image. 

The History:

This cathedral is a truly awe-inspiring building, which is pretty much what they intended when they built it. It has a more than 1,500 year history of building and destruction and rebuilding, which cannot be reduced to a single paragraph.  I suggest the Wikipedia article for a summary. 

The Technology:

Vues d'Optique, optical views, were designed to provide a perception of depth from a single two-dimensional engraving.  They were viewed through a zograscope, also known as an "optical diagonal machine," by which the user looked through a large magnifying lens into a mirror in which the image was reflected. Techniques such as exaggerated perspective, brighter foreground colors, magnification of the subject matter and tight framing of the field of vision served to disrupt the viewers perception of a two-dimensional image and helped to draw the viewer into the scene.  

It did not provide the kind of 3D experience afforded by the stereoscopic photography that replaced it in the mid 1800s, but from about 1750 until the advent of photography it was a popular home entertainment for the well-to-do.  It offered a greater sense of presence in views of foreign places and sights than one could experience in images on walls or in books. Titles are often seen in multiple languages under the image, with a single title mirrored in reverse above it so that one could read it in a viewer.