Elizabethan House, Exeter, Devon

Description

PRINT OF THE ELIZABETHAN HOUSE AT EXETER,

DEVONSHIRE

From ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine and Historical Chronicle‘

Vol XXIX

May 1848

Drawn by J.A. Repton : Engraved by J. Greig

An original copper line engraving from The Gentleman’s Magazine, a monthly publication founded by Edward Cave in London in 1731. The picture was drawn by the architect John Adey Repton FSA who was the son of the landscape gardener Humphry Repton, and contributed many articles to the Gentleman’s Magazine and Britton’s Cathedral Antiquities series. This print was engraved by the landscape artist and lithographer John Greig, who also worked on many of Britton’s Beauties series. Read more about the Gentleman’s Magazine and its illustrators.

The antique print is a view of a four-storey Tudor style town house that was included in a monthly series within the Gentleman’s Magazine, entitled “Ancient Timber Houses”, with drawings supplied by J.A. Repton. The illustrations had been intended for an earlier publication that had never developed and so the magazine editor noted that it was unknown whether the Elizabethan building was still in existence by 1848. The house was a late Elizabethan or even Jacobean structure with typical overhanging storeys supported on brackets, decorated with acanthus leaves, that held the joists in place.

Unfortunately, many of the timber-framed domestic buildings in Exeter, dating from the Middle Ages to the C17th, were demolished during the general slum clearances of the late 1880s to the 1930s. The old Western quarter was particularly hard hit, and the engraving is very similar to Victorian photographs of dwellings from the Preston Street area. The heavy bombing of Exeter by the German Luftwaffe between 1940 and 1942, may well have removed the few remaining historical buildings in the city centre.

The print is in a good clean condition and is available either mounted in an ivory conservation quality mount and framed with a dark walnut and gold wood frame with acrylic glazing. Price – £40.00.

Approximate dimensions are:

Mount window: 120 x 180 mm

Frame overall size: 225 x 280 mm