Turkey, ALANYA ALAIYE HARBOR MEDITERRANEAN SEA TAURUS ~ 1838 Art Print Engraving

Description: ALAYA Artist: William Henry Bartlett ____________ Engraver: W. Floyd Note: the title in the table above is printed below the engraving CLICK HERE TO SEE MORE ANTIQUE VIEWS OF MIDDLE EASTERN SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEWS LIKE THIS ONE!! AN ANTIQUE STEEL ENGRAVING MADE IN THE LATE 1830s! VERY OLD WORLD! INCREDIBLE DETAIL! FROM THE ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION: This is quite the "Pirate Town;" and the inhabitants, as far as their opportunities allow, do not fail to merit, in disposition and often in action, their ancient designation. We had got quite under its melancholy walls before we observed them, and the place appeared like a dream, so wild its old towers encircled it, and its immense mass of gloomy Greek houses hung in strange confusion on the slope. They are mostly built with galleries, and of the most picturesque appearance. The whole scenery around Alaya is awfully sublime. A very few trees are sprinkled among the houses, in whose gallery it is wildly pleasant to sit or walk at evening, with the pipe and one's own thoughts for companions. An open boat was hired, to coast Asia Minor as far as Adalia, intending thence to go overland to Smyrna, not above six days journey, passing Ephesus in the way. We got out to sea early in the morning with a slight breeze, and were becalmed the greater part of the day: it was the month of August, sultry in the extreme, in an open boat. whose only shade was a blanket, which served also to keep off the dews by night. We had two Turkish sailors and a boy; they behaved with the greatest attention. Next morning we got to Soli, and crept along the shore. Here the artist fell ill. At evening what a sublimity in the mountain ranges of Taurus, near the island of Provencal; and how glorious was the sunset which was reflected upon the sea of Cilicia, the sea of St. Paul's wanderings! It was beautiful, though melancholy, to his sea alone, to fall asleep under the canopy of heaven, and awake to see over its lonely waste of waters. Sometimes we caught a distant sail; and then a suspicious-looking felucca, skulking under the rocks, led us to fear perhaps our insignificance preserved us: sometimes we ran into some little hire the clear blue water played among the rocks, and washed the pendentage one sweet and solitary spot we remember, where we went to seek water; the waded on shore, and, discovering a delicious fountain, brought off a most welcome supply. How sweet was that cold water, clear as crystal, sweet as the Nile waters, thus drank on a desert shore beneath the burning cliffs! One evening we landed, and reposed an hour beneath the shade of pomegranates, in a lonely plain hemmed in by mountains: it was a romance, this coasting voyage; and many a sublime, many a delicious spot, many an impressive ruin, was passed, all solitary and forsaken. The fever that had seized the artist was now alarming; he grew delirious: at last the boat reached the fine bay of Kalendria; and there his recollection, as if called back by the exquisite scene, came again; but of all that he saw on this coast, he was most struck by the romantic and unparalleled situation of Alaya, and its fortified cliffs : here he landed, but was utterly incapable of ascending the hill. And here he lingered during fifteen days of suffering: is it any wonder, if its rocks, and waves, and fantastic aspects were indelibly remembered? The whole place is like a wild and beautiful pantomime, something that one sees in a troubled dream; so suddenly it rises, or rather starts from the waves, so defying is the look of house, and rock, and tower. Few were the comforts to a helpless invalid, who was obliged to recline on his mattress all day, and whose greatest effort was to creep, or be carried into the gallery, to look on the shipping, and the sea that seemed to dash on the very chamber walls. At length he left Alaya, and soon saw the hill of Adalia, its old castle, and its picturesque Turkish houses. He was carried out of the boat on shore, and reposed a moment under the gate, where is a beautiful spring, from which he drank copiously: this spring is the very life of Adalia and its population; a large cup, according to Turkish usage throughout the East, is suspended by a chain; and many are the draughts that are taken daily and hourly of its cold and limpid water. A room in an empty khan was appropriated for a lodging, and he repaired thither, it was quite empty, and as quiet as the grave. Here he suffered exquisitely from weakness and depression; no one to speak to but a servant-no one to render the smallest kindness required by his reduced condition; unable to sleep all night for the mosquitoes or to go out for more than a hundred yards all day from weakness. He begged his servant to find some garden where he could go in the day, to break the horrible solitude of the empty khan. When en route in good health' and spirits, even to be the sole tenant of the caravanserai is a small misery; with the morrow we leave it forever, for fresh excitements: and when its floor is peopled with many a group, and "fire, and costume-it is a romantic and welcome home. But when even the voices faint, and there is no other, voice; when the wearied limbs can hardly drag themselves from one desolate pillow to another-this is real loneliness, real agony. The servant came to say he had found a garden. Oh, it was a most delicious spot, as if it was made purpose for the repose of an invalid; it was enclosed by the old walls of which rose above with their mouldering Moorish battlements, that wire for large cannon on the side next the sea, which dashed against the rocks below. The garden was a citron grove, with palms and vines; it was one with the sea-breeze and the perfume of blossoms: nor was it all lonely, there was woman, evidently fast sinking, to whom a friend was trying to administer coni-oiatwa she came here also to breathe the fresh air in the cool of the garden. On the following day some of the officers of an Egyptian corvette in the roads also came to joy shade, and to sing and play the melancholy music of the East. Here, every day the hours were lounged away till sun-set. Thus passed eight days, when a cutter parted for Rhodes; he gladly took passage in her, and, descending the steep hill, left forever Adalia, its castle, and its mournful khan. PRINT DATE: This lithograph was printed in the late 1830s; it is not a modern reproduction in any way. PRINT SIZE: 7 inches by 10 inches including white border of apprpoximately one inch on each side (not shown in scan). PRINT CONDITION: Condition is fine. Bright and clean. Blank on reverse. BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST: William Henry Bartlett, (b London, 26 March 1809; died at sea off Malta, 13 Sept 1854) was an English draughtsman, active also in the Near East, Continental Europe and North America. He was a prolific artist and an intrepid traveller. His work became widely known through numerous engravings after his drawings published in his own and other writers' topographical books. His primary concern was to extract the picturesque aspects of a place and by means of established pictorial conventions to render 'lively impressions of actual sights', as he wrote in the preface to The Nile Boat (London, 1849). The background for his work on the Middle East and the Holy Land, of which the picture represented is one of his several hundred illustrations on the subject, is as follows: In the early 1800s, the middle east was a very popular subject. Between 1790, when James Bruce's "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile" appeared, and 1818, when Edward Daniel Clarke's eight volumes on "Travels in Various Countries of Europe, Asia and Africa were published, more than twenty noteworthy travel books about the Near and Middle East were placed before the public. Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and his disastrous campaign in Syria had attracted considerable attention to the East even as Byron's travels and poetry, a decade later, stirred romantic imaginings about Turkey, Greece, and the Levant. The inter-relationships of Muhammed Ali, Sultan Mahmud, and Tsar Nicholas also guaranteed that, politically, western Europe had to remain alert to happenings at the eastern end of the Mediterranean. And, of course, the building of railways in France and the introduction of the steamship greatly facilitated travel to the Middle East. Though these were strong influences on western travellers, it is questionable, in Bartlett's case, if any affected him more than the religious one. His detailed knowledge of the scriptures and of biblical history is apparent throughout his writings. He wanted to see the lands of the Old and New Testament as much for his own sake as he did for the sketches he was commissioned to take from the London, England publishing firm of H. Fisher and Son. So Bartlett set out for the middle east on January second, 1834, accompanied by his wife. Mr. Bartlett proceeded directly to Paris; thence by the nearest route to Naples where the couple spent some time on those pleasant shores. From there, Mr Bartlett took leave of his wife, who returned reluctantly to England by herself, while he engaged passage to Malta, and from there to Alexandria and finally to Beirut Lebanon. From here he began his many excursions into the inland of Syria and neighboring areas. On leaving Beirut, Mr. Bartlett followed the sea shore to Tripoli, and then ascended the steeps of Lebanon and visited Baalbec. His intended visit to Jerusalem, the chief object of his journey, was defeated by the open war, in which the Holy City had been taken by Egyptian forces loyal to Mohammed Ali and his son Ibrahim Pasha, who wrested control of Palestine from the Ottomans for a 10-year period beginning in 1831. From Balbec, he therefore proceeded to Antioch and to Tarsus, along which part of this journey he was taken by a serious fever. Having completed his tour in syria, and taken sketches of all the biblical and classical scenes in his route, Bartlett returned to London in January, 1835, a full year after his departure. He had performed his engagements greatly to the satisfaction of his publisher, and immediately began to prepare sketches for the engravers. SHIPPING:Buyers to pay shipping/handling, domestic orders receives priority mail, international orders receive regular mail. We pack properly to protect your item! Please note: the terms used in our auctions for engraving, heliogravure, lithograph, print, plate, photogravure etc. are ALL prints on paper, NOT blocks of steel or wood. "ENGRAVINGS", the term commonly used for these paper prints, were the most common method in the 1700s and 1800s for illustrating old books, and these paper prints or "engravings" were inserted into the book with a tissue guard frontis, usually on much thicker quality rag stock paper, although many were also printed and issued as loose stand alone prints. So this auction is for an antique paper print(s), probably from an old book, of very high quality and usually on very thick rag stock paper. EXTREMELY RARE IN THIS EXCELLENT CONDITION!

Price: 11.99 USD

Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2024-12-14T20:41:58.000Z

Shipping Cost: 7.95 USD