Antique Engraving of Shanklin Chine from the Beach, Isle of Wight, 1824

An original antique engraving of Shanklin Chine seen from the beach, Isle of Wight, drawn and engraved on copper by George Brannon and published at Southampton on the twenty seventh of July 1824. The view looks up from the shore into the narrow wooded cleft where the stream comes down to the sea, with the cliff rising in layered shelves on the left and a cottage set at the mouth of the chine among trees. Cattle stand on the wet sand in the foreground and a figure watches over them, which is how Brannon habitually gives scale to a cliff. The whole plate is in uncolored line, the chalk and the sandstone modeled in close hatching, exactly as the views in this series were issued.

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.

Shanklin Chine is long described as the oldest visitor attraction on the Isle of Wight and has been shown for a fee since the early nineteenth century, so a view of 1824 catches the very beginning of that trade. Brannon returned to the chine more than once in the volume, and this lower view from the beach is the one that explains its geography, the ravine cut back into the cliff and the cottage guarding the entrance. The coastal plates from Vectis Scenery group beautifully: three or four hung together in matching frames make a satisfying wall for a coastal house or a bathroom.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.

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