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2.11 “Layer method” for spatial recession. From Nian Xiyao, The Study of Vision. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, Douce Chin. B. 2, p. 54v.

squares in the grid, suggesting a consistent representational ratio that can be adapted as necessary to a surface of any size.

Scholars have repeatedly misread these two illustrations (figures 2.11 and 2.13) as instructions for stage backdrops or Chinese opera stages,⁷¹ likely because the object that Nian actually represents is a miniature European perspective theater.⁷² The Augsburg printmaker Martin Engelbrecht (1684–1756) and his workshop exclusively produced this popular and sophisticated eighteenth-century tabletop amusement between the 1720s and 1770s. Such theaters included five to eight small scenery-like sheets placed in parallel slots inside a box and viewed as framed by an architecturalized open façade at the front of the box, all the pieces cooperating to suggest a scene with deep recession. Engelbrecht perspective theaters were not the type of thing that the Jesuits brought into China, but rather the sort of singular curiosities that enterprising officials in Guangdong acquired directly from foreign traders and sent to the court in order to curry favor with the recipient, whether a court official or the emperor himself. Engelbrecht did not begin producing his theaters until after Nian’s time in Guangdong