Cape of Good Hope

Small, coloured, 1800 engraving of Cape Town & Table Bay, from the European Magazine,  densely packed with Cape history.

This uncommonly available prospect of Cape Town shows Zonnebloem, then a farmng estate, and the bulidings, along Strand Street, that no longer exist. On the extreme right of the foreshore is the Amsterdam Battery that was demolished in the 20th century in an act of civic hooliganism. The prospect also depicts the prominent, original steeple of the Lutheran church.

Also anchored in the bay is HMS Arniston, the Eastindiaman that five years later, on the 30 May 1815, was wecked during a storm at Waenhuiskrans, near Cape Agulhas with the loss of 372 crew members and wounded soldiers from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and survival of only six. Also in the bay is HMS Rattlesnake a 16-gun sloop that had participted in the 1795 Battle of Muizenberg.

The small prospect was published in the European Magazine, a monthly magazine, that was published from 1782 until 1826 - it competed against the longer lasting Gentleman's Magazine - the first two decades published by John Sewell, mentioned in the imprint. The prospect was drawn by the aritist, C. Thomas, aboard HMS Ceres, an East India Company Eastindiaman, under command of George Stevene, that was on its second return second voyage from the Far East. 

This smalll, attractively coloured and historically dense engraving is in very good condition - the upper margin has been reversbably extended with archival paper to enable easy framing.