The Needles with Inset of the Lost Spire Rock That Named Them, 1828

An original Brannon engraving of the Needles, Isle of Wight, carrying two images on one sheet: the main view of the chalk stacks from the water, and beneath it a smaller inset copying an older engraving that shows the tall spire shaped rock from which the Needles took their name. The main view gives the stacks as they stood in 1828, blunt and massive off the end of the island, with the cliff behind and boats under sail. The inset is the real find, a record of the slender pinnacle that collapsed into the sea and the reason the group is called the Needles at all, since nothing standing there now resembles a needle. Brannon lettered the second image plainly as a copy of an old engraving.

The view belongs to Vectis Scenery, George Brannon's series of original and select views of the Isle of Wight, printed and published by the engraver himself at Wotton Common on the island in 1829 and sold by the principal local booksellers. Brannon drew the subjects on the spot and cut the copper plates himself, so draughtsman and engraver are one man throughout. The volume's own advertisement leaf describes a first series of twenty-eight views with a map and letter-press, with a further twenty views issued separately as a Sequel. The technique is line engraving on copper. The views were issued uncolored, as line engravings on white paper, and this impression is uncolored.

The spire shaped rock, known to earlier writers as Lot's Wife, fell in 1764, long before Brannon was born, and this is one of very few nineteenth century sheets to reproduce an image of it alongside the surviving stacks. That makes the plate a before and after on a single piece of paper, and gives it a hook no other sheet in the volume has: it explains the name of the most photographed rocks in England. Two images in one frame also make it the most interesting sheet of the set to hang on its own in an entrance hall or a study.

Light uneven toning, browner towards the edges. Handling soiling along the bottom and right edges. Scattered light foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

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