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View, Argentina, Buenos Aires, The Great Southern Railway Station, Antique Print, 1884

$575

Estacion Central del Ferro Carril Del Sud de Buenos Ayres 1884
[The Great Southern Railway Station at Buenos Aires]

Sprague & Co., London: 1884
Color-process print
8 x 14.75 inches, image excluding text
15 x 21.5 inches, overall
$575

A view of the Great Southern Railway Station in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a grand, two-story building designed by the London, England, firm of Parr, Strong & Parr in 1883 and completed in 1885 to replace the original station. The new station was designed in an eclectic Victorian neo-Renaissance style possibly inspired by the Maisons-Laffitte, a French chateau that it resembles. The view shows an ox-drawn wagon, horse-drawn carriages and dozens of pedestrians in front of the building. The print is titled in Spanish above the image with an English translation in the lower margin. Inscriptions below the image identify the architects, as well as the civil engineer, J. Livesey of London.

Description

Built by British investors and headquartered in London, the Buenos Ayres Great Southern Railway was one of Argentina’s two biggest railways. The Great Sourthern Railway Station is now known as Estación Plaza Constitución, and still in use by Argentine railroads.

Parr, Strong & Parr was a London architectural firm whose three principals included Samuel Parr and his son John Edmeston Parr. The younger Parr emigrated to Canada in 1888, eventually settling in Vancouver, where he continued to work as an architect and designed numerous hotels and other buildings there as part of the firms Parr & Fee and Parr, Mackenzie, & Day.

Sprague & Co. was a London print publisher active in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. A 1901 advertisement describes a range of printing services offered to the architectural profession, including what they refer to as the “‘ink-photo’ process,” which “reproduces Water-Colour or Pencil Drawings or Photographs with the same facility as Pen and Ink Drawings in line.”
Inscriptions, lower margin: J. Livesey, M. Inst. C.E. Londres, Ingeniéro. Parr, Strong & Parr, Londres, Arquitéctos.

Publication information: “Ink-photo,” Sprague & Co., London,

Condition: Generally very good with bright original coloring. Recently professionally cleaned and deacidified, with some light remaining toning wear, soft creases, remnants of pale foxing in outer margins.

References:

Chambers, Paul Bell and Louis Newbery Thomas. “Estación Terminal Constitución.” Buenos Aires Ministerio de Cultura. http://acceder.buenosaires.gov.ar/en/879590 (12 April 2012).

“Maisons-Laffitte.” Wikipedia. 7 April 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maisons-Laffitte (12 April 2012).

“Parr and Fee.” Wikipedia. 2 April 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parr_and_Fee (12 April 2012).

Sutcliffe, G. Lister. Sanitary Fittings and Plumbing. Whittaker & Co., 1901. Online at The Builder Student’s Series: http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/construction/plumbing/Sanitary-Fittings/The-Builder-Student-s-Series-Books.html#ixzz1rsE8axnG (12 April 2012).

Additional information

Century

19th Century