HUQUIER. - Vüe de la Place de Grosvenor a Londres.

So-called optical print illustrating a perspective view of Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, London. The centrepiece of the 100 acre Grosvenor Estate, it was built between 1725-31, laid out with large handsomely equipped houses, and has always attracted residents of the highest social status. Much of the Square was rebuilt in the 1920’s by the second Duke of Westminster and only two of the original houses now survive.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were many popular speciality establishments in Paris, Augsburg and London which produced optical viewing devices and special engravings to be viewed through them. In the 18th century the optical print or vue optique came into existence, whose exaggerated converging lines were intended to produce the optical illusion of deep recession. The viewing devices for which these perspective prints were produced consisted of a lens and a mirror, this requiring the use of reversed or mirror-image pictures.