from a series called Collection des Prospects popularly known as Vues d' Optique published by engraver Francois Xavier Habermann in Augsburg in 1776. Reverse text above image reads, L'Entre Triumphale De Troupes Royales a Nouvelle Yorck. Subtext reads both German and French Der Einzug der Koniglichen Volker in Neu Yorck/ L'Entre Triumphale de Troupes royales a Nouvelle Yorck. In a gilt frame; 11.5" 16.5" (w/o frame); 14.5" x 19.5" (w/ frame). Many of the Vues d' Optique were imaginative, crude and inaccurate, although some were very well-done. The letters above the text were deliberately reversed since these prints were designed for viewing in optical machines with a magnifying glass and a reflective mirror that gave an illusion of depth and reversed the image. Accompanying the lot is a 1943 letter from a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York describing the series of Vues d'Optique with New York subjects. Habermann also produced views of Boston and Salem.
Condition: Minor creases top right, slight foxing, not removed from frame.