Vue de l’Est du Pont et Nouvel Arsenal de Kingston sur l’Hull.

Very special thanks to Margo and the team at the The Prints Collector in the Netherlands for kindly allowing us to use this image drawn c1770 by Georg Balthasar Probst for Open Bridges: A River Full Of Stories.

The full description and link to the print from The Prints Collector is: “Published by Georg Balthasar Probst (1732 – 1801) who was a German artist, engraver and publisher in Augsburg, a major European publishing center in the 17th and 18th centuries. He produced architectural views of places around the world, including vues d’optique, which were published in various places during the last half of the 18th century, including Paris, Augsburg and London.

Artists and Engravers: Made by ‘B. F. Leizel’ after ‘Georg Balthasar Probst’.

Subject: Antique print, titled: ‘Vue de l’Est du Pont et Nouvel Arsenal de Kingston sur l’Hull.’ – View of the New Bridge and arsenal of Kingston, Hull, Yorkshire, Great Britain. This is an optical print, also called ‘vue optique’ or ‘vue d’optique’, which were made to be viewed through a Zograscope, or other devices of convex lens and mirrors, all of which produced an optical illusion of depth.”

We initially thought that the building in the engraving was originally the Lock Keepers’ Cottage at the entrance to Humber Dock.  We now realise it’s more likely to be the first Dock Office on Dock Office Row, High Street at the entrance to Queen’s Dock from the River Hull, and the buildings to the left, North Walls, due to the artist’s death in 1801 and Queens Dock opening in 1778 and Humber Dock not opening until 1809. So the engraving is likely to depict the proposed new home of the Trawler Arctic Corsair and the date, 1778.

We took the following two photographs from the Humber Dock Lockpit yesterday, 22.12.2018, with the views north and south, that show the similarity.

Rich & Lou Duffy-Howard

Open Bridges made history when for the first time all 13 of the bridges over the River Hull in the UK’s City of Culture 2017 raised, swung or closed simultaneously splitting the city of Hull in two at 20:17 hours on 22nd September 2017.  Historic vessels sailed down the River to be met by 21st century tugs.

Open Bridges is an independent Hull/East Yorkshire based project.