Orta San Giulio Marketplace on Lake Orta after Birket Foster, circa 1878

About this sheet

A busy market day on the lakeside square of Orta. Canvas-covered stalls fill the open ground, where women in local dress sort baskets, pots and produce, a two-wheeled cart stands loaded at left, and a small dog runs among the shoppers. Behind the stalls rise tall stuccoed houses, one painted "Albergo del Leone" and another "Caffe" above its awnings, and at center an arcaded hall with an outside staircase and painted coats of arms. On the right a woman leans from a balcony crowded with potted flowers, and to the left a row of young trees lines the shore of the lake, with mountains rising steeply beyond.

The plate is lettered simply "Orta." The square is the Piazza Motta at Orta San Giulio on Lake Orta in Piedmont, and the arcaded building with the staircase is the Palazzo della Comunità della Riviera, the town hall built in 1582. The view is after Birket Foster (1825 to 1899), the English watercolorist much loved for his travel and village scenes, whose monogram appears in the lower right, and was engraved by J.J. Crew. The imprint is that of Cassell, Petter and Galpin of London, from their Picturesque Europe of the later 1870s.

A steel engraving of great precision: the market crowd, the roof tiles and the shutters are all crisply cut, while the mountains and sky are rendered in fine, silvery lines.

Full of incident and detail, this is a print for a kitchen, breakfast room or entrance hall, framed in a warm wood that picks up the Italian setting.

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.