Artwork
The Fi-ord Between Tunes and Dales
The Fi-ord Between Tunes and Dales is a print by the Romanticist artist Edward Price. It dates from 1834 and is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
About this work
Overview
The print *The Fi-ord Between Tunes and Dales* is one of twenty-one mezzotints by Edward Price contained within a bound volume of illustrated material.
The print *The Fi-ord Between Tunes and Dales* is one of twenty-one mezzotints by Edward Price contained within a bound volume of illustrated material. It resides in the Lennox-Boyd collection, a private assemblage of British graphic works amassed over decades and transferred to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2015 via an inheritance tax settlement. The volume, bound in brown leather, reflects the collector’s broader interest in print culture and material artifacts of the British visual tradition.
Subject & Meaning
The image depicts a rugged coastal landscape—dark, towering cliffs rise from a churning fjord under a brooding sky. A solitary boat, rendered small by scale, navigates the turbulent waters below. The title suggests a real geographical location, though its phrasing evokes lyrical ambiguity. The scene conveys isolation and natural grandeur, emphasizing the human presence as fragile against elemental forces, without overt narrative or symbolic intent.
Technique & Style
Executed in mezzotint, the print employs a tonal range from deep blacks to delicate grays to model the cliffs and clouds. The artist manipulated the plate’s roughened surface to achieve subtle gradations, enhancing the atmosphere of impending storm. Sharp contrasts between the dark water and the overcast sky create vertical tension, while the boat’s minimal detail reinforces the scene’s scale and mood without narrative distraction.
History & Provenance
The print was part of the private collection of David Lennox-Boyd, a British print dealer and scholar who operated Sanders of Oxford, a shop known for fine prints and rare engravings. His collection, comprising roughly 50,000 mezzotints and related ephemera, was acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2015. The acquisition preserved a significant body of 18th- and 19th-century British graphic art, including objects beyond prints, such as frames and textiles.
Context
Edward Price worked during a period when mezzotint was increasingly used for landscape reproduction, often to satisfy middle-class demand for picturesque imagery. Though less celebrated than contemporaries like Turner, Price contributed to a tradition of British printmaking that merged topographical accuracy with atmospheric effect. The inclusion of his work in a bound volume reflects the era’s practice of collecting prints as curated visual narratives rather than standalone images.
Legacy
The Lennox-Boyd collection’s transfer to the V&A ensured the preservation of a rare, comprehensive archive of British print culture. Price’s work, once part of a private dealer’s inventory, now serves as a resource for studying the evolution of landscape printmaking and the social habits of collecting in the 19th century. Its institutional home allows scholarly access, anchoring its quiet drama within a broader historical framework.
Artist & collection
