ICLOK
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15 years ago
I found these some months ago on the net and all are rather nice engravings seemingly attributed to an R.P.Leitch. Interestingly the so called Polgooth location appears again as Wheal Rose. Can anyone tell me please what book these come from and a little about the author...I like this type of book as its a great window on the past.
Are the images accurate to the locations or just romantic illustration.
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đŸ”—Personal-Album-856-Image-48063[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-48063[/linkphoto][/link]
Wheal Rose
đŸ”—Personal-Album-856-Image-48060[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-48060[/linkphoto][/link]
đŸ”—Personal-Album-856-Image-48062[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-48062[/linkphoto][/link]

EDIT I love the detail in the stamps engraving! :thumbsup:
đŸ”—Personal-Album-856-Image-48064[linkphoto]Personal-Album-856-Image-48064[/linkphoto][/link]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!
Graigfawr
15 years ago
To judge from the engravers' styles, they are not all from the same book.

The stamps image comes from Samuel Smiles 'Lives of the Engineers' - see D.E.Bick, 'The Old Metal Mines of Mid Wales: Part 6: A Miscellany', p.52.
ICLOK
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15 years ago
So why the ref on each one to R P Leitch.... the 2nd engraving (the stamps) was titled Wheal Rose and his name also in there to.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!
wheal
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15 years ago
Looking at the prints of Huel (Wheal) Vor and (Great) Wheal Fortune and knowing the area well these have a little poetic licence in them - especially the Wheal Fortune print which features Godolphin and Tregonning Hills in the background. Looks nothing like them (or there has been some serious erosion since the prints made!).

Nice prints though.
Wheal
poke around long enough and you'll find something..
ICLOK
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15 years ago
Thats what I thought might be the case... I guessed some romantic notion may have been applied!
The night time one gives me goose bumps of Polgooth... can't think why?

Still like to find out the main book(s) they are from.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh Creeper!!!!!
spitfire
15 years ago
"Graigfawr" wrote:

To judge from the engravers' styles, they are not all from the same book.

The stamps image comes from Samuel Smiles 'Lives of the Engineers' - see D.E.Bick, 'The Old Metal Mines of Mid Wales: Part 6: A Miscellany', p.52.


Surely that description is too loose, Smiles wrote several books of that title. I have one on the Stephenson's and there is certainly no signs of stamps in that one.
spitfire
Graigfawr
15 years ago
I recognised the stamps illustartion having seen it in OMMMW Part 6; I only repeated the (rather inadequate) reference that Bick gave. Smiles' works went though many editions and his Lives of the Engineers wound up a multi-volume set as successive editions included more and more engineers. My local library only has an early edition that limits itself to the railway engineers so I'm in the same position as you.

My comment about different styles suggesting different engravers was based on my impression that the stamps engraving had a different feel to it compared to the other engravings.

Leitch had a huge output of views from all around the UK and all around the world. Clearly, like many other engravers, much of his work was based on other people's original drawings / watercolours / photos, and very likely he, like other successful engravers, employed assistants to engrave the repetative simple parts - the only way he could have realistically churned out numerous engravings to tight deadlines for illustrated journals like the 'Illustrated London News' (which he produced engravings for).

The dramatic exaggeration mentioned by Wheal is perfectly normal for the mid C19 (Leitch was at his peak in the 1860s I think) when fevered Victorian imaginations ran a perfect riot, turning Snowdonia into Alpine peaks, etc. I've a great postcard (but no scanner - sorry) entitled 'Victorian artist at work' that shows an artist working on a canvas depciting precipitous peaks, dramatic mountain torrents and menacing clouds with an early moon lowering from behind them, whilst his easel is set up in a gently rolling bucolic landscape with a babbling brook and some docile sheep in the middle distance. It really does sum up the transformations that some artists effected on the landscapes they depicted!

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