View of the stern and the twin scews. CERBERUS was launched in 1870. She was a monitor type which in essence meant that this type of vessel was a floating gun platform and suitable for shallow water coastal defence. CERBERUS  was an advance on the earlier monitor ships,{first produced in 1861} in that the central gun turrents revolved and was known as a breastwork monitor. Built for the Victorian Government to guard the entrance to Port Phillip Bay against attack by the Russians. She survives as a breakwater at Black Rock.
She is shown in the Alfred Graving Dock, Melbourne with a party of notables inspecting the stern.
 
Published in The Australasian Sketcher. 1874.
 
Wood engraving.
 
164 mm x 228 mm.
 
Wood engravings were first produced in Europe in the fifteenth century. During the late eighteenth century the process was reintroduced and used for inexpensive illustrated books. The nineteenth century publishing phenomena of the illustrated newspaper was made possible by use of the technique. The process allowed for the illustration and the text to be printed by a single pass through the printing press using the letterpress method.  It also made it possible for several engravers or even a team to produce and work on a single illustration at the same time.
 
All the major artists of the period contributed to the illustrations. Some papers acknowledged the artists on the plates but The Australasian Sketcher appears to have had a policy of anonymity. Where known, we have included the artist’s name.