This is one of a pair of tiny coppers showing a similar but not identical part of a church by day (in the case of CWLF 49, 400678) and by night (in this case). The can both be dated to c. 1645.

The vanishing point in this painting is marked by a pin-hole; this held a piece of string which helped to draw all the lines converging on this point (the so-called ‘orthogonals’). Works of this kind were called ‘perspectives’ in the seventeenth century; it is possible to imagine original viewers examining them from exactly the right position (with one eye) to get the full three-dimensional effect. It is clear even to the naked eye that the architecture was painted first and the figures added over the top of a complete interior. This does not mean that the figures are irrelevant: the light passage here shows a priest celebrating mass blow a depiction of Christ on the Cross.