Martin Engelbrecht and his elder brother Christian were leading engravers and print publishers in early eighteenth-century Augsburg, specialising in decorative prints, perspectival or 'optic' views and engraved ornament. Around 1730 Martin Engelbrecht introduced and popularised 'Dioramas', sets of cut-out cards which created the illusion of three-dimensional space when viewed en enfilade in a box or slotted frame. Several such series by him are recorded, depicting interiors, landscape and genre scenes or dramatic biblical subjects. The particular interest of this example for the museum is that it shows in great detail the interior of a grand artist's studio.
Englebrecht's peep-show is an important representation of the ideal arrangement and interior decoration of a successful artist's establishment of the baroque period. It reveals a fascinating record of both the professional artistic practice and the social activity associated with such spaces. The successive layers of the image show an apprentice grinding colours and other equipment; painters art work at their easels and a further group of artists drawing a sculptured figure from several angles; towards the back of the scene, in an area elaborately hung with canvases, connoisseurs can be seen inspecting prospective purchases whilst other finished and unfinished pictures are stacked against the walls. Throughout there are arrangements of plaster casts of classical statuary and anatomical details. The architectural grandeur of the interior and the glimpse of a formal garden through a door at the furthest extreme, together with the rich and fashionable costumes worn by painter and visitors alike, all suggest that this is the establishment of an artist of the highest status.