To Her most Excellent Maj.ty Queen Caroline, this Perspective View of the Royal Hospital at Greenwich is humbly inscribed...<br><p>'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.<br></p>
'Spooner's Protean views No 30. Greenwich Hospital, Changing to The Battle of Trafalgar'
<div class="fn value">
William Spooner</div>
circa 1835 <div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1835-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902</div>
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