A hand-painted cylindrical anamorphose. The distorted figure appears normal when reflected in a cylindrical mirror placed on the circle.

Cylindrical anamorphoses originated in China in the late 16th to early 17th century. These early anamorphoses were created using purely visual techniques: artists likely painted them while viewing the result in the mirror. In 1625, the French artist Simon Vouet made a drawing showing a cylindrical anamorphosis of an elephant, possibly based on Chinese anamorphoses seen earlier when he traveled to Constantinople. Jean-Louis de Vauilezard published techniques based on mathematics and geometric optics in 1630. Jean François Niceron followed in 1638 with simplified processes more suitable for use by artists (Baltrušaitis 1969).