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| Andrea Locatelli Scene of Sorcery and Black Magic ca. 1740-41 drawing (study for painting) Musée du Louvre |
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| Jean-Charles Delafosse Edward Young composing Night Thoughts 1783 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Nicolò dell'Abate Scene of Aristocratic Dissipation ca. 1565 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Pieter de Josselin de Jong Iron-Workers ca. 1880-1900 pastel Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Hubert Robert The Artist's Studio in Rome 1760 oil on canvas Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
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| follower of Canaletto Portico with a Lantern ca. 1741-45 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Anonymous Dutch Artist Tavern Interior (pissing into wooden tub in foreground) 1619 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Jean-Baptiste Lallemand Architectural Caprice inspired by Antique Baths ca. 1750 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Léon-Augustin Lhermitte Weaving Workshop 1893 drawing Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| Anonymous Japanese Photographer Greenhouse with Peonies ca. 1887 hand-colored albumen print Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous Italian Photographer Conservation Workshop in Florence, treating paintings by Francesco Salviati, Agnolo Bronzino, Fra Angelico and Giotto 2006 photograph Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Fortezza da Bassio, Florence |
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| attributed to Louis-Jean Desprez View of Excavated Pompei ca. 1777-84 watercolor Musée du Louvre |
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| John Piper Approach to Fonthill 1940 oil on canvas Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester |
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| Jenaro Pérez Villaamil Seville Cathedral (interior with Corpus Christi procession) 1835 oil on canvas Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid |
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| Jean-François-Thérèse Chalgrin Ball at Versailles (honoring the Marriage of the Dauphin to Marie Antoinette) 1770 drawing, with watercolor Musée du Louvre |
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| Girolamo Marchesi (Girolamo da Cotignola) View of a City, with Chained Bear ca. 1520 oil on panel Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara |
"The Art of Perspective, which hath the eye for its Principle, to whom Nature hath given more vivacity and more Perfections than to the other senses, and which holdeth amongst them the Rank and the Advantages that the Soul hath above the Body, is likewise the fairest and most delightful of all the Parts that the Science of the Mathematicks hath put forth into light. This Science may will boast itself to be the soul and the life of Painting, seeing that it is it which giveth unto Painters the Perfection of their Art, which in its ordering the heights and the measures of the Figures, the Moveables, the Architectures, and other Ornaments of a Picture: It instructeth what colours he should use, lively or sad, in what place he ought to apply the one and the other, what he ought to finish, and what ought not so to be: where one is to give a light, and where there is no need of it: in a word, it is this that ought to begin and finish, seeing that it ought to go throughout all. Without help, the best Master will make as many faults as draughts, principally in Architectures, wherewith they would enrich their Works, as I have seen in Pieces well esteemed, where they have failed so foully, that this in part hath been the motive of my design, for to cause them to know their errours without naming them, and to teach the young ones to avoid them. How excellent a Painter soever one is, he must observe all these Rules, or he shall content none but ignorants, and a Reasonable Painter that shall know and use these well, shall do wonders to every one's content."
– Jean Dubreuil, from Perspective Practical (1651), translated by Robert Pricke (1672)