[Winstanley's Eddystone Light-house.] Fanale del Porto di Plymouth.
[Engraved by Francesco Sesone? after Henry Winstanley.] [Naples, n.d., c.1740.] Engraving. 170 x 210mm (6¾ x 8¼"). Narrow margins top, original binding folds. Repairs in margins on left. Bit messy. An Italian illustration of the first Eddystone Lighthouse, copied from a print drawn, etched and published by Henry Winstanley, the designer and builder of the lighthouse. It shows the structure with the cranes needed to transfer people from boats to the rock. Winstanley (1644-1703) was a painter who is said to have learned etching from Wenceslaus Hollar. In the 1690s he opened an amusement arcade in Piccadilly, ''Winstanley's Water-works'', filled with automata of his own design. Having made a fortune he became a merchant, but when two of his ships were wrecked on the Eddystone Rocks, he funded the building of the first recorded offshore lighthouse. If building a tower on a featureless rock was not hard enough, during the construction the enterprise was attacked by a French privateer and destroyed in 1697, with Winstanley taken into captivity. However Louis XIV ordered his release, stating 'France is at war with England, not with humanity', allowing Winstanley to complete the structure in 1698. In 1703 Winstanley was overseeing some repairs when the Great Storm of 1703 hit and both Winstanley and his lighthouse were swept away.
[Ref: 56700] £70.00
(£84.00 incl.VAT)