To Her most Excellent Maj.ty Queen Caroline, this Perspective View of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich is humbly inscribed - RMG PU2235

To Her most Excellent Maj.ty Queen Caroline, this Perspective View of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich is humbly inscribed...
'Protean views' are a table-top version of the 'diorama', which Louis Daguerre brought to London from Paris as a public entertainment in 1821 but only later (before 1839) developed into a full double-effect transformation from one view to another, rather than just a change of effects on the same scene. They have one view on the front of the paper - usually a calm topographical scene or famous monument and something dramatic like a battle or conflagration on the reverse. When lit from the back the view transforms into the scene on that side: in this case Greenwich Hospital changes to a view of Trafalgar. William Spooner of 377, The Strand, London published a large number of these numbered 'Protean' views. He also issued similar items (about 1837) in which, for example, posies of flowers transformed into portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

'Spooner's Protean views No 30. Greenwich Hospital, Changing to The Battle of Trafalgar'