Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, Antique Morris Woodblock Print, circa 1870

About this sheet

Swans drift on still water before the house in this antique print of Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, a color woodblock country house view printed by Benjamin Fawcett for Morris's Picturesque Views of Seats, circa 1870. A long classical stone front with a central pedimented portico extends across the middle distance, framed at the left by a single large tree whose trunk and lower branches fill much of the foreground.

Small figures walk on the lawn near the house, and a thin plume of smoke rises from one of the chimneys, a small detail that presents the house as lived in rather than as an empty architectural subject. The water is kept calm and only lightly broken, reflecting the pale stone of the house and the gray-blue of the sky, and the two swans are picked out in clean white against its darker surface, their outlines kept crisp by exact registration. The effect is quiet and inhabited, a portrait of a great house on an ordinary day.

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 Bedfordshire and collectors of English country house views will enjoy this antique print of Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, an original Victorian plate removed from the book and suitable for framing. Margins are wide and untrimmed, with the title Woburn 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, a small nick in the right edge 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.