Gaucin. Looking towards Gibraltar and the coast of Barbary
John Charles Varrall after David Roberts, 1835
Steel engraving
The engraving depicts a dramatic view of the medieval Castillo del Águila (the castle of the Eagle) in Gaucín with the rock of Gibraltar and the coastline on the horizon. It was reproduced in Thomas Roscoe’s 1835 The Tourist in Spain. Granada, with a commentary on the ruggedness of the landscape and its Muslim-Christian history: ‘At various intervals you discover miserable villages, which hang as it were on the sides of naked rocks. Their position and their names, Guatazin, Benali, and Atajates, seem to show that they were built by the Moors, who sought in the bosom of the almost inaccessible mountains, retreats where they might be secure from the attacks of the Christians. They have since often become the haunts of robbers and smugglers’ (p. 162).
Roscoe further highlights the commanding position of the ruinous castle and the beauty of the view, as well as the contentious status of Gibraltar: ‘The ocean-rock is seen rising proudly from the bright blue, southern sea, and the most callous spectator cannot but be struck with a warm admiration of the mighty power which, sweeping from its northern home of waves, made that grand sea-mark of the old Moors its own. It is then, as the English tourist gazes round him, that he feels proud of the country which gave him birth, and it is an object of as bitter envy to the Spaniard’ (p. 163).
Title: Gaucin. Looking towards Gibraltar and the coast of Barbary.
Author/Artist: John Charles Varrall (1795-1855, engraver) after David Roberts (1796-1864, artist).
Technique and Material: Steel engraving, paper.
Size: 114 x 192 mm (image).
Published: Plate [13] from Thomas Roscoe, The Tourist in Spain. Granada, London: Robert Jennings and Co, 1835, facing page 162.
Date: 1835.
Marks and Inscriptions: lower edge, left: ‘Drawn by David Roberts’; centre: title as above; right: ‘Engraved by J. C. Varrall’.
Institution: Barry Ife Collection.
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Details
Title
Gaucin. Looking towards Gibraltar and the coast of Barbary .
Artist
John Charles Varrall (1795-1855).
Date
1835.
Medium and Support
Steel engraving, paper.
Dimensions
114 x 192 mm (image).
Marks and Inscriptions
lower edge, left: ‘Drawn by David Roberts’; centre: title as above; right: ‘Engraved by J. C. Varrall’.
Institution
Barry Ife Collection
Plate [13] from Thomas Roscoe, The Tourist in Spain. Granada, London: Robert Jennings and Co, 1835, facing page 162.