Abbey & Palace of Dumfermline [sic]

Book Description

London: Francis Jukes, 1 February 1792. Aquatint, printed in colours and finished by hand, by C.Catton Jr. 15 5/8 x 23 1/2 inches. 20 1/8 x 27 1/8 inches. A fine example of a very rare large format hand-coloured aquatint view after Joseph Farington, R.A. This rare view, after a drawing made by Farington in 1788, is of Dunfermline Abbey, about 20 miles north west of Edinburgh, and 'one of the most important remains in Scotland. Excepting Iona it has received more of Caledonia's royal dead than any other place in the kingdom... The old building was a fine example of simple and massive Norman architecture, as the nave testifies, and has a beautiful doorway in its west front... The palace, a favourite residence of many of the Kings, occupying a picturesque position near a ravine, was of considerable size... Here James IV, James V and James VI spent much of their time... After Charles I was crowned he paid a short visit to the palace, but the last royal tenant of the palace was Charles II, who occupied it just before the battle of Pitreavie in 1650' (Encyclopedia Britannica 1910, VIII, p.679). Joseph Farington 'was born at Leigh in Lancashire on 21 Nov. 1747. He became a pupil of Richard Wilson in 1763, and, like his brother George, gained several premiums at the Society of Arts. At the age of twenty-one he joined the Incorporated Society of Artists, and was admitted a student of the Royal Academy at its formation in 1768. He was elected an associate of the Academy in 1783 and full member in 1785, and in later years took an active and influential part in the government of that institution.' (DNB) Redgrave wrote that his colouring 'possessed power and brilliance' and that 'his penciling is free and firm'. Because of the rarity of large format plates such as the present work, he is best known for two collections of engraved views of the English lakes, one containing twenty plates published in 1789; the other forty-three plates, issued in 1816, with descriptions by T. Hartwell Horne. He also published Views of Cities and Towns in England and Wales as well as seventy-six plates illustrating a History of the River Thames, 1794.

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