The Rock of Gibraltar from the Sea

The artwork

On the left, on the banner with the place names, three gulls fly beside “The Signal House”: they are the same three that circle, in every view, above the little tower on top of the Rock. You receive it printed on handmade Amalfi paper, in a handmade frame.

• Three views of the Rock of Gibraltar, one inside a scroll, hand-coloured.
• On a staircase or in a study, the Rock can be recognised even from afar.
• A gift for anyone who loves Gibraltar and naval history.

It was the signal house, Gibraltar's lookout. Lieutenant William Booth, who served on the Rock during the Great Siege, between 1779 and 1783, noted in his diary how it worked. The Spanish had built the tower to tell the town which ships were in sight on the ocean or the Mediterranean, and it was still used the same way: two horizontal poles, one pointing east and one west, and on each as many straw-stuffed leather balls as there were ships sighted on that side. In his day the “Signal House Man” was a sergeant on guard.

It comes from The Little Sea Torch, the guide with 137 coastal profiles that John Thomas Serres published in London in 1801, after sailing with the Channel Squadron and drawing coastlines for the Admiralty. It is a hand-coloured aquatint with three views of the Rock; the second is drawn inside an unrolled scroll. In the first, on the left, a tower with three more gulls marks Cabrita Point on the Spanish coast: off that point, on 12 July 1801, the Franco-Spanish fleet gathered before the Second Battle of Algeciras. The original is part of the David Rumsey Map Collection.

In a study or along a staircase, it is a gift for anyone who has lived in Gibraltar or sees it every summer from the ferry, and for anyone who loves naval history. And on top of the Rock, the three gulls are still on watch.

Unique quality material

Print on handmade Amalfi paper
Sheet size: 29 x 42 cm (11.4 x 16.5 in)
With frame: 31 x 44 cm (12.2 x 17.3 in)
Material: artwork printed on very fine handmade Amalfi paper with deckled edges
Frame: dark brown with gold fillet, handmade, with glass