Warkworth Castle, Northumberland, Antique Romantic Ruin View, circa 1850

Warkworth Castle in Northumberland, an original antique steel engraving, uncolored, circa 1850. The caption below the image reads "WARKWORTH-CASTLE, NORTHUMBERLAND."

The ruined castle crowns a green hill in the middle distance at the left, its great keep topped by a slender turret, with broken curtain walls and towers running to the right and a church spire rising behind them. A river winds across the middle of the plate below the hill. On the near bank at the left a man stands fishing with a long rod, and a small boat with a figure in it floats on the water further right. Tall trees fill the right half of the plate and frame the left edge, with a fallen branch and thick undergrowth in the foreground under a sky of heaped clouds.

No artist or engraver is named on the plate. The imprint at lower left reads Aus d. Kunstanst. d. Bibl. Instit. in Hildbh. (from the art works of the Bibliographisches Institut in Hildburghausen), and at lower right Eigenthum d. Verleger (property of the publishers). The plate number DCVI is engraved at the top right.

The sheet comes from a dealer's album rather than from a bound set. Meyer's Universum was a serial collection of engraved views with descriptive text, published by Joseph Meyer's Bibliographisches Institut at Hildburghausen from 1833, its plates engraved on steel. Warkworth Castle stands above the River Coquet and was for centuries a stronghold of the Percy family, earls of Northumberland.

Loss or wear at the bottom left, bottom right, top left and top right corners. A deeper irregularity along the right edge. Even age toning. Small light flecks in the printed area, to be checked by eye.

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