About this artwork

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.

Updated February 2024

  • artist:
    Arthur Melville (1855 - 1904) Scottish
  • title:
    The Chalk Cutting
  • date created:
    1898
  • materials:
    Oil on canvas
  • measurements:
    85.10 x 92.80 cm; Framed: 113.30 x 120.30 x 5.00 cm
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased with the assistance of Art Fund and the Patrons of the National Galleries of Scotland, 2013
  • accession number:
    NG 2870
  • gallery:
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Arthur Melville

Arthur Melville