Saint Lawrence Church, One of England's Smallest, Isle of Wight, 1827

An antique line engraving of Saint Lawrence Church, Isle of Wight, drawn, engraved and published by George Brannon on the island on the first of June 1827. The subject is the tiny church long said to be one of the smallest in England, shown low among cottages and garden walls with the down rising behind and trees pressing in on either side. Brannon keeps the scale honest by setting figures and a cottage doorway beside the church, so the eye understands at once how little the building is. The plate is uncolored line on copper throughout, with the chalk of the down worked in soft close hatching and the stonework of the church in short firm strokes. It is the gentlest subject in the whole series.

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.

The old church at Saint Lawrence is barely the size of a cottage room and was long a set piece of the island tour: visitors were taken to see it precisely because it was so small, and guidebooks of the period repeat the claim that it was the smallest church in England. Brannon engraved it in 1827, before the later enlargement, so the plate records the building in very nearly its original form. Small, quiet subjects of this kind hang well in a hallway or beside a bookcase, and the sheet appeals to collectors of church and ecclesiastical topography as much as to island collectors.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Marked handling soiling along the right and top edges. A few small foxing spots in the margin. All four corners complete.

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