MADRID EL ESCORIAL SPAIN 1780 LEIZELT UNUSUAL ANTIQUE ORIGINAL OPTICAL VIEW ANTIQUE COPPER ENGRAVED OPTICAL VIEW OF EL ESCORIAL old times rare books and maps (20333) 100% positiveSeller's other itemsSeller's other itemsContact seller US $47.10 MADRID EL ESCORIAL SPAIN 1780 LEIZELT UNUSUAL ANTIQUE ORIGINAL OPTICAL VIEW Description Prospect des Escurials von vornen gegen Madrid. === l'Entrйe de l'Escurial, en perspective. Description: Striking and highly detailed fine unusual 1780 copper engraved so-called optical view of the El Escorial, near Madrid, Spain. Several inhabitants adorn the view. The Vues d'optique were specifically developed to provide the illusion of depth when viewed through a zograscope, also known as an "optical diagonal machine" or viewers with similar functions. Date: 1780 ( undated ) Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 44,6 x 32,6 Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Paper with chains. Plate old original colored. Small foxing and browning. Conditions are as you can see in the images. Artist & Engraver: Balthasar Friedrich Leizelt (also spelled Leizel, active 1750–1800) was a German artist and copperplate engraver working from Augsburg. Leizelt produced a series of European and American scenic views at a time when pictures of foreign countries and people were popular and designed for use in optical viewers. As is normal for these prints the series title is a mirror image because optical viewers made use of mirrors which reversed the image. The Age of Enlightenment sparked a great interest in science, so that optical toys and devices became a standard form of drawing-room entertainment in the 1700s and 1800s. Light, perspective, and multiple images were cleverly combined to create the illusion of moving pictures. Claude-Joseph Vernet (14 August 1714 – 3 December 1789) was a French painter. His son, Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, was also a painter.