Tall-quay

A brief aside from yesterday's An afternoon in Torquay #1.

I'm certainly not the first to notice this, but the happenstance of taking a photo from pretty well the exact location of the c. 1850 engraving by Edmund Evans, Watering Places of England - Torquay, from the road to Dartmouth, illustrates an interesting phenomenon: the tendency of some creators of old prints to exaggerate vertical scale. The top image is the undoctored photo; the middle one the same photo with its vertical scale increased to 200%; the lower one the Evans print.

I've noticed this previously with Isle of Wight scenes; I assume the artists did it to give more drama to the scenery. The Torquay engraving above seems to be a colour version of one of an Illustrated London News series, The watering places of England, drawn by Birket Foster and engraved by his friend Edmund Evans (the two went on tour in 1846-47 to research the series).

- Ray