Looking Out of Freshwater Cavern to the Needles, Brannon Plate, 1829

An antique line engraving of Freshwater Cavern, Isle of Wight, drawn and engraved by George Brannon and published at Wotton on the first of June 1829. The view is taken from deep inside the cave looking out, so the rough arch of the entrance frames the bright sea beyond, and through a side opening in the rock the stacks of the Needles can be seen in the distance. A figure stands among the boulders on the cave floor, dwarfed by the roof above him, and the water laps in over shingle at the mouth. Brannon has reversed his usual practice here and engraved the foreground almost solid in dark crossed line, keeping the light for the opening, which gives the plate a strong and unusual tonal structure.

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.

Cave interiors were a favorite subject of the picturesque tour, reached by boat and shown to visitors as a thrill, and Freshwater Cavern was the island's best known example. Brannon engraved it in the final year of the first series, when his handling of light had become confident enough to carry a composition built entirely on a dark foreground and a bright opening. That contrast makes the plate stand out from the rest of the volume on a wall, and it works particularly well in a dim corner or a paneled room, where the light inside the engraving does the work.

Even age toning. Handling soiling along the bottom, right and top edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

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