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Shepherd's Modern Athens
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Part of the old town, from Princes Street
Shepherd, Thomas Hosmer, 1829, Engraving
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Part of the old town, from Princes Street
Part of the old town, from Princes Street
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Category
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Item no
18641
Title
Part of the old town, from Princes Street
Description
The tall tenements of the Old Town of Edinburgh are viewed from Princes Street, with Salisbury Crags in the background. The Old Town is crammed with buildings on different levels. The spire of the Tron Kirk is seen behind them. The North Bridge with arches crosses over from the New Town to the Old Town. In the immediate foreground are old tenements and a slaughterhouse.
Artist / maker
Shepherd, Thomas Hosmer
Engraver
Lacy, S
Date
1829
Size
9.7 x 16.9 cm
Type
Engraving
Location
Edinburgh and Scottish Collection
This image comes from 'Modern Athens', a book of engravings based on drawings by Thomas Shepherd published in 1829. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Edinburgh was growing rapidly. The popular neoclassical architectural style of the time was inspired by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and Edinburgh was nicknamed 'Athens of the North'. Shepherd's engravings celebrate the beauty of Edinburgh and show many notable buildings and streets both within the city, and further afield.
This engraving shows the modern day site of Waverley train station and Princes Mall with the buildings of the Old Town behind it.
In Shepherd's accompanying description to this print he writes that in the Old Town: 'the houses exhibit an endless change in their perpendicular and horizontal lines. The base of one mass is often on a level with the chimneys of another: and thus, whilst some families are living apparently in the clouds, others are destined to dwell beneath the surface of the earth.'
Exhibitions with this item
Shepherd's Modern Athens
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Old Town
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