Franz Xaver Habermann was a German engraver and decorative artist. Initially engaged in sculpture, he studied in Italy and then went to Augsburg. He worked as an architectural draftsman and became the leading ornamental engraver of the Augsburg Rococo. In 1781, he became a teacher of architecture and perspective at the Academy of Drawing in Augsburg.
The Academy was a well-known publisher of optical prints, based in Augsburg. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were many popular specialty centers in Paris, Augsburg and London that produced optical viewing devices and special engravings. The viewing devices for which these perspective prints were made consisted of a lens and a mirror (three-dimensional effect), requiring the use of inverted or mirror-image images.
- Image: an opticaprent showing a view of bastion Gelderland, a bastion of the castle of Batavia. The title and image are in mirror writing. Shown is the Portuguese Buitenkerk and its surroundings from bastion Gelderland
- year: ca. 1770
- quality: excellent
- signed: printed below plate
- image size: 29.5 x 41.3 cm | 11.6 x 16.3 in (h x w)
- sheet or frame size: 46.5 x 57.5 cm | 18.3 x 22.6 in (h x w)
