About this sheet
A coastal composition sets this antique print of Dunrobin Castle, Sutherland, apart: a Scottish country house view printed in color by Benjamin Fawcett for Morris's Picturesque Views of Seats, circa 1870, taken from the beach below. The castle's conical-roofed turrets and steep French-influenced roofline rise above a wooded bluff, with a rounded hill closing the view behind.
The house occupies only the upper middle of the sheet, small in relation to the shoreline and sea. In the foreground, waves break along a curving sandy beach; a group of small figures and a dog walk near the waterline at the right, and a sailing vessel, with what may be steamer smoke behind it, sits far out on the horizon as a pale mark against the sky. The sea is built from several blues and greens with darker lines for the breaking surf and paler wave crests laid over it, beneath a sky of warm gold and pink cloud bands suggesting evening.
The Reverend Francis Orpen Morris (1810 to 1893), best known for his History of British Birds, edited A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland, published in London by William Mackenzie, with drawings largely by Alexander Francis Lydon, in an issue of circa 1870. Benjamin Fawcett (1808 to 1893) of Driffield, one of the great Victorian color woodblock printers, printed the plates from separate blocks in register, so the color here is printed, not hand colored.
As an original Victorian plate removed from the book, this antique print of Dunrobin Castle, Sutherland, is suitable for framing and popular with admirers of the house, with lovers of Sutherland, and with collectors of country house views of Great Britain and Ireland. The sheet has its full original margins, with the title Dunrobin Castle lettered in small capitals below 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 margins, a small crease at the lower left corner 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.
