View of the Royal Square of Bordeaux — Vanisch

A hand-coloured optical print celebrating Bordeaux's Place Royale, the riverside showpiece of eighteenth-century French urban design on the Garonne.

Original title Veüe et Perspective de la Place Royalle de Bordeaux; published by Vanisch, Paris, c. 1770.

Vues d'optique were among the most popular printed entertainments of the eighteenth century, designed to be viewed through a zograscope that gave the scene a vivid sense of three-dimensional depth. The Place Royale (now the Place de la Bourse) was designed by the royal architect Jacques Gabriel and completed by his son Ange-Jacques Gabriel around 1755, a celebrated example of French classical town planning whose open colonnades made an ideal subject for the optical view's deep perspective.

Hand-coloured copperplate engraving; sheet approximately 34.0 × 51 cm; in very good condition.