Object Image

The Chalk Cutting

In this experimental work Melville depicts the dazzling light and dust of a chalk pit. His treatment of the landscape is almost abstract. The location is the South Downs, near Merstham, Surrey, close to where he was then living. A tunnel was being constructed for the Quarry Line of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Company, which opened in 1899. Amidst the clouds of chalk dust is a narrow-gauge railway and trucks loaded with blocks of stone.

Credit: Purchased with the assistance of Art Fund and the Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland, 2013...

1898
Oil on canvas
85.1 x 92.8cm
NG 2870
Image and text © National Galleries of Scotland, 2024