About this sheet
Ivy clothes almost the whole front in this antique print of Combermere Abbey, Cheshire, a color woodblock country house view from Morris's Picturesque Views of Seats, printed by Benjamin Fawcett circa 1870. The long, low Gothic facade shows bare stone only at its castellated parapet and a pointed-arched entrance porch.
Two small figures, evidently a lady and a companion, walk across the lawn at the left, giving scale to the length of the building and a touch of everyday life. The ivy is printed in at least two distinct greens, darker low down where the growth is thickest and lighter and more yellow-green toward the upper storeys and parapet, which keeps the long wall legible as a building rather than a flat green band. The lawn is left open and plain, and the sky is worked in a soft, even gray-white cloud, giving the whole sheet a quiet, overcast character.
Its source is A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland, edited by the Reverend Francis Orpen Morris (1810 to 1893), naturalist and author of the History of British Birds, for the London publisher William Mackenzie, with drawings largely by Alexander Francis Lydon; this plate is from an issue of circa 1870. The color was printed from woodblocks by Benjamin Fawcett (1808 to 1893) of Driffield, who also printed Morris's bird books: a color wood engraving built from separate blocks in register, not hand colored.
Admirers of the house, anyone with ties to Cheshire and collectors of English country house views will enjoy this antique print of Combermere Abbey, Cheshire, an original Victorian plate removed from the book and suitable for framing. The sheet has full, untrimmed margins, with the title Combermere Abbey set in small capitals beneath the image.
This antique print is in good condition for its age. The paper shows light toning consistent with age, together with a few small spots in the upper margin and a line of binding holes along the lower edge, where the plate was once bound into the book. Please review the images for further condition details.
This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed. Any framed or interior images are shown for presentation and inspiration only, unless the listing explicitly states that the item is sold framed.
