Milton Abbey, Dorset, Antique Morris Woodblock Print, circa 1870

Taken from a considerable height, this antique print of Milton Abbey, Dorset, looks down across a wooded valley to the house and its adjoining abbey church, a color woodblock country house view printed by Benjamin Fawcett for Morris's Picturesque Views of Seats, circa 1870. The church's Gothic tower and traceried windows are distinguishable even at this remove.

The church is joined at one end to the lower, plainer ranges of the house, set well below in a clearing among the trees. Dense woodland fills most of the sheet, worked in a wide range of greens to suggest the different canopies crowding the valley sides, with an open sweep of parkland and a curving path in the middle distance leading down toward the buildings. The valley is built from overlapping green and gray-green tones graded by distance, paler and cooler toward the horizon, so that the plate reads as a landscape with a building in it rather than a portrait of the building itself.

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 Dorset and collectors of English country house views will enjoy this antique print of Milton Abbey, Dorset, an original Victorian plate removed from the book and suitable for framing. The sheet has its original margins, with the title Milton Abbey lettered in small capitals below 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 margins, including one near the lower 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.