Saint Boniface Down above Ventnor Hotel, Sketched at Pulpit Rock, 1824

An uncolored line engraving of the eminence of Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, sketched near the Pulpit Rock by George Brannon and published at Southampton on the first of January 1824. The plate was made to show one thing plainly: the very steep descent of Saint Boniface Down seen in profile, falling in a single sweep from the skyline to the shore, with the hotel at Ventnor seated at its foot and the sea filling the right of the composition. Brannon states that purpose in the engraved caption, which is unusually explanatory even for him. Broken rock in the foreground and a track along the slope lead the eye down the fall of the hill, and the figures are kept very small so that the scale of the down is not lost.

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.

This is the sheet that explains the Undercliff, the long landslip terrace that gave Ventnor its sheltered climate and made it a prescribed resort for invalids through the Victorian decades. The hotel drawn at the foot of the down stands at the beginning of that story, when Ventnor was still a handful of buildings rather than a town. Profile views of landscape made for a geographical purpose have a documentary quality that collectors of topography value highly. The wide low composition suits a long frame over a desk or a bed head, where the line of the down does all the work.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the bottom and top edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

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