Raby Castle, County Durham, Antique Morris Woodblock Print, circa 1870

Deer graze below medieval walls in this antique print of Raby Castle, County Durham, printed in color by Benjamin Fawcett for Morris's Picturesque Views of Seats, circa 1870. The country house view shows the full extent of the castle's walls and towers, a long, irregular skyline of battlements, turrets and a taller central keep with a flag flying from its summit.

A moat curves along the front of the composition, and a single figure stands by the water at the left edge, small against the fortifications behind. In the foreground a group of deer, several lying and one or two standing with visible antlers, occupies open grass beyond the moat, printed in warm brown and white against the green turf. The gray stone is handled with real tonal variation, darker in the deep window reveals and under the battlements and lighter on the sunlit wall faces, so that the many individual towers remain legible under the color rather than reading as one gray mass.

William Mackenzie of London published A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland from the 1860s to the 1880s, edited by the Reverend Francis Orpen Morris (1810 to 1893), the clergyman and naturalist of History of British Birds fame; this plate is from an issue of circa 1870. Benjamin Fawcett (1808 to 1893) of Driffield, among the finest color woodblock printers of the Victorian period, printed each color from its own block in register; the color is printed rather than applied by hand.

This antique print of Raby Castle, County Durham, is an original Victorian plate removed from the book, ready for framing, and a fine choice for owners and admirers of the house or collectors of English country house views. The sheet retains its original wide margins, with the title Raby Castle 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 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.