PROBST, G.B. - Vue d'une Rue Nanking.

A well-known publisher of optical prints, established in Augsburg. After a design by P.van Blankaert.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many popular specialty establishments in Paris, Augsburg, and London produced optical viewing devices and special engravings that could 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.