3-052-321 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Deserted, drawn by S. Read, 1872. Illustration to a short story by S. B. 'I beg you will turn to the Engraving bearing the above title, and examine it well, if its beauty has not already caused you to do so. Be so kind as to master the scene. Note the utter abandonment of that stately mansion, the melancholy grass-grown terrace walk, the river far down, the distant bridge, which no one now crosses. The only life is that in the old raven, who knows himself to be so perfectly secure that he can use his leisure in curiously inspecting the decaying stonework. You will scarcely need to read the artist's name, it is "writ large" in the picture itself. Has not our friend S. Read been true to himself and to his art? How I came to know the work was in this wise. I called on him one evening in this drear-nighted December; and, being informed that though he was out he would soon return, I took an old friend's privilege of entering his studio, and upon an easel I saw the engraving on the wood. Drawing an American rocking-chair near the easel, I gave my best attention to the picture, and I was so absorbed in it that I did not hear the arrival of my friend the artist, until he asked me what I thought of the thing, as he modestly called it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.