This attractive colour plate is one of a Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of The Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britian and Ireland as presented by F. O. Morris.
A greater proportion of the drawings were by Alexander F. Lydon, and printed from coloured wood-blocks using the Baxter process by Benjamin Fawcett.
Published by William Mackenzie, Ludgate Hill, Edinburgh and Dublin.
Condition: EXCELLENT CONDITION. The colors are rich and bright and the image shows elaborate detail and is in Excellent Condition. Blank on Reverse side and printed on heavy quality paper.
Excerpt from the old descriptive: Here was in early times a monastery of the Cistercian order, founded in the year 1146 by HUGH DE BOLEDAC, a powerful baron, incited to the work, it is recorded, by the Abbot of Fountain's Abbey, Yorkshire. - These Abbey lands were given by King Edward the Sixth, after the dissolution of the monastaries, to JOHN, LORD RUSSELL, soon afterwards created Earl of Bedford, in whose family they have remained ever since. - The building, as may be supposed, has been variously altered from time to time. - The present mansion was built by the fourth duke. - The principal front is the Ionic order of Grecian architecture, and was the work of the fifth duke. - The Venetian Drawing-room has a fine series of twenty-four views of Venice, by Canaletti, from which it derives it name. - In the hall is a mosaic pavement removed from Rome. - There is a sculpture gallery one hundred and thirty-eight feet long by twenty-four feet wide, with a flat dome over its centre supported by eight marble columns, containing a fine collection of antique marbles, among which is the famous Lante Vase of Parian marble, six feet three inches wide, and six feet high, inclusive of the pediment on which it stands, with two magnificent handles, and beautifully sculptured. It was found in the ruins of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, of which no doubt it formed a conspicuous ornament. Also a fine cast of the Apollo Belvidere, a statue of Psyche, by Westmacott, and sculptures of Bacchus, a bust of Fox, etc., etc. ---
A copy of the circa 1870s descriptive, which covers some wonderful landscape history and some genealogy information will be included with the print. |
