Satyrs Admiring the Anamorphosis of an Elephant

This engraving, originally pasted onto the so-called Vouet Scrapbook (inv. 45.97, fol. 78), is based on a drawing (Hessisches Landesmuseum–Graphische Sammlung, Darmstadt) by the great virtuoso painter and draftsman Simon Vouet, who was deeply interested in this particular form of anamorphosis, know as catoptric. Set in a pastoral landscape, the scene depicts a group of astonished satyrs observing a cylindrical mirror—a primitive culture before it was enlightened by science. The distorted, unreadable drawing is revealed to be the image of an elephant when clarified in the reflection of the cylindrical mirror. Vouet’s design originally served as a frontispiece for the second edition of Jean Fraçois Niceron’s "La Perspective curieuse" published in Paris in 1652, which was the most famous treatise on anamorphosis. The Museum owns the first edition of Niceron’s treatise, inv. 41.100.450(2).