Melrose Abbey, Scotland, Antique Steel Engraving after Birket Foster, circa 1876

The roofless interior of Melrose Abbey seen at night. Tall clustered columns and pointed arches frame the view at the left, and at the center the great traceried window rises to its full height, its slender mullions silhouetted against a bright, silvery sky. A smaller window at the right glows in the same light. Above, torn clouds drift across the opening where the vault once stood, and ivy climbs the broken walls. On the floor, fallen stones, a low tomb and scattered plants lie half in shadow, with brambles and leaves in the foreground.

Melrose Abbey, in the Scottish Borders, is one of the finest ruined abbeys in Scotland, and its late Gothic window tracery is especially admired. Sir Walter Scott made it famous with his lines advising the visitor to see "fair Melrose" by pale moonlight, and this view takes him at his word, with the light pouring through the window as if from the moon. The lettering credits Birket Foster as the painter at lower left and A. Willmore as the engraver at lower right; Foster was one of the most popular English landscape illustrators of the Victorian era, and Arthur Willmore an accomplished engraver of landscape. The title is engraved in copperplate script, with the imprint Cassell, Petter and Galpin, the London publisher, beneath it.

The print is a steel engraving. The engraver handles the contrast between the dark stone and the luminous sky with great delicacy, using closely spaced lines to model the columns and leaving the window openings nearly white.

An atmospheric upright for a hallway, a stair or a study, it would look especially good in a dark frame that echoes its nocturnal mood.

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