Alum Bay Colored Sand Cliffs and the Needles Rocks, Freshwater, 1824

An uncolored line engraving of Alum Bay and the Needles rocks at Freshwater, Isle of Wight, drawn and engraved by George Brannon and published in London on the twentieth of March 1824. The view sweeps along the bay with its famous banded sand cliffs, the strata standing almost vertical where the chalk and the colored sands meet, and carries the eye round to the chalk stacks of the Needles running out into the Channel. Sailing craft are set offshore and small figures work the beach beneath the cliff. Because the views in this series were issued without color, the celebrated sands are rendered entirely in line, the different beds distinguished by the direction and the weight of Brannon's hatching rather than by any wash.

Vectis Scenery was George Brannon's life's work, a series of Isle of Wight views drawn and engraved by him and published from Wotton Common on the island, this volume in 1829. The title promised the picturesque beauties, local peculiarities and places of particular interest of the island, and the book served visitors as both a guide and a keepsake. Brannon's own advertisement leaf sets the first series at twenty-eight views and a map. Each plate is a line engraving on copper, taken from a drawing made in front of the subject. The views were issued uncolored, as line engravings on white paper, and this impression is uncolored.

Alum Bay is the one place on the island where geology itself is the attraction, its vertical beds of white, red, yellow and gray sand having drawn visitors since the eighteenth century, and jars of that sand have been sold there as souvenirs for two hundred years. This plate gives the bay and the Needles in a single composition, which is the view every visitor still walks out to the headland to see. For an interior it is a strong, simple horizontal: hung alone over a long piece of furniture, or placed with the other Freshwater and Needles plates from the volume.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. Slight wear at the bottom left corner. Minor edge wear, shallow nicks along the bottom.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.