Megane-e

In Japanese art, a megane-e (眼鏡絵, 'optique picture') is a print designed using graphical perspective techniques and viewed through a convex lens to produce a three-dimensional effect.

Perspective boxes first appeared in Renaissance Europe and were popular until superseded by the stereoscope in the mid-19th century.

[4] The artist Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–95) made serious study of imported perspective techniques and applied them to his painting.

He gained an interest in making ukiyo-e prints through the artist Utagawa Toyoharu, who produced uki-e 'floating pictures' using linear perspective techniques.

Ōkyo began making uki-e prints for viewing through a convex lens: megane-e.[5] Ōkyo later dismissed his megane-e, perhaps because their subjects were of kabuki and the pleasure quarters and thus considered of low artistic value.