Selina Bracebridge’s Panoramic Sketch of Athens


 

These days, answering some reference questions can be easier done online with pictures than in multiple emails. Princeton is fortunate to have Selina Bracebridge’s Notes descriptive of a panoramic sketch of Athens, taken May, 1839,  including the text booklet and the zinc lithograph panorama. In addition, we hold the facsimile reprint “Sold for the benefit of the Protestant Chapel at Athens,” also with both the text and the panorama.

Selina Bracebridge (1803-1874), Notes descriptive of a panoramic sketch of Athens, taken May, 1839: sold in aid of the London Benevolent Repository (London: W.H. Dalton, 1839). Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2007-0025Q. Spine title: Sketch of Athens ; “Sketched from nature and on zinc by Mrs. Bracebridge, May 1838”–Folded plate.

Selina Bracebridge (1803-1874), Notes descriptive of a panoramic sketch of Athens, May, 1836 : sold for the benefit of the fund for building a Protestant Chapel at Athens (Coventry: Henry Merridew, [1836]). Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2007-0652Q. Cover label: “… Sold for the benefit of the Protestant Chapel at Athens. Reproduced from an early print by Mrs. Bracebridge. Sold in aid of St. Catherine’s British Embassy School, Athens.”

 


The British Museum describes Bracebridge as an amateur artist; pupil of Samuel Prout, who lived with her husband Charles Holte Bracebridge (q.v.) in Athens for several years during the 1830s; later traveled to Italy, Greece and Egypt with Florence Nightingale and joined her at Scutari during the Crimean War. They appear in the painting of 1857 by Jerry Barrett entitled, “The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari.”

Jerry Barrett, The Mission of Mercy: Florence Nightingale receiving the Wounded at Scutari, 1857. Oil on canvas. NPG 6202

Fourteen figures identified, from left to right: Sir William Linton (1801–1880); Sir Henry Knight Storks (1811–1874); Alexis Benoît Soyer (1810–1858); Miss Tebbutt (1810–1896); Robert Robinson (active 1857); Mary Clare (Georgina Moore) (1814–1874); William Cruickshank (died 1858); Charles Sillery; Jerry Barrett (1824–1906); Florence Nightingale (1820–1910); Eliza Roberts; Selina Bracebridge (c.1800–1874); Charles Bracebridge (1799–1872); and Lord William Paulet (1804–1893).