About this sheet
Fallow deer rest before the house in this antique print of Panshanger Park, Hertfordshire, printed in color by Benjamin Fawcett for Morris's Picturesque Views of Seats, circa 1870. The country house is shown from across its deer park, a broad level lawn running up to the entrance front with nothing to break the line of sight.
The castellated garden front is rendered in pale ochre stone, its roofline broken by battlements, turrets and pointed Gothic windows along the ground floor, composed as an irregular, castle-like range rather than a single symmetrical block. The deer lie and graze on the grass, a few bucks with visible antlers among them, picked out in warm buff and white against the green. Two full-grown trees anchor the composition at either side, their canopies built from dense, overlapping dabs of green, yellow-green and darker olive, and the sky is worked in soft gray-white cloud banks over a narrow band of blue, so the light reads as overcast.
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 Hertfordshire and collectors of English country house views will enjoy this antique print of Panshanger Park, Hertfordshire, an original Victorian plate removed from the book and suitable for framing. The sheet has generous cream margins on all sides, with the title Panshanger Park set 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 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.
