View of the Harbor of St Pierre, Newfoundland, Early French Coastal Engraving

The roadstead of the island of Saint-Pierre near Newfoundland, an original French copper engraving of the eighteenth century, lettered below the image "Vue de la Rade de l'Isle de St. Pierre proche de Terre neuve". A designer's credit ("delineavit") appears at the lower left.

The view looks over a wide, calm bay from a low, rocky shore. At the left, a large spruce stands beside a small thatched building and a fenced yard, with a boat and a seated figure in the corner. In the center, a group of men stand and talk on the beach, one pointing, while a dog sits nearby. At the right, a fishing stage on tall stilts with a pitched roof extends over the water above a pile of logs, barrels and a beached boat with a furled sail, and men work around it. In the distance, rocky islets and a sailing ship lie under a sky of broken clouds.

Saint-Pierre was a French fishing station off the southern coast of Newfoundland, and the stages and drying facilities shown here belong to the cod fishery that made it valuable to France.