bOuRNE FINE ART

THE FINE ART SOCIETY
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bOuRNE FINE ART
31 OCTObER -
23 NOvEmbER 2013

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Paintings by
ARTHuR mELvILLE

The Fine Art Society BOURNE

Dealers since



Foreword by

PAT R I C k b O u R N E

Although Arthur melville was a ‘tremendously vital’ Scot, it took
an English, London-based art critic to remind us of melville’s ge-
nius. Reviewing the Glasgow boys exhibition at the Royal Acad-
emy in 2010 in the Evening Standard, brian Sewell wrote about
the richness of melville’s work which he found ‘quite astonish-
ing’. He also noted his compositional modernity - ‘ as satisfyingly
proportionate and abstract as a mondrian’. He declared that he
‘would enter a Faustian pact to possess Awaiting an Audience with
the Pasha (no 3).

my own appreciation of melville’s stature came from my first
seeing John Robertson’s remarkable collection of the artist’s
work on Orkney twenty five years ago. However, melville has for
too long been a prophet in his own country. Oils such as Chalk
Cutting and Contrabandista (both in this exhibition, see nos 11
and 14) are strikingly avant-garde for an artist who died in 1904.
However it was as a watercolourist that he was in a class of his
own as far as technique is concerned. big set piece works such as
Corpus Christi, Rialto Bridge and Tangiers make the case for calling
him the most accomplished watercolourist working in britain in
the late nineteenth century.

This is only a modest exhibition in terms of numbers of works. It
is high time that a major museum staged a defining exhibition of
melville’s work ideally in London, as well as in Scotland.

The generosity of melville collectors has made this exhibition
possible and I would like to thank them all on behalf of The Fine
Art Society. kenneth mcConkey has written perceptively on the
artist, as he has done for so many of our exhibitions over the
years, and we are very grateful to him for this.







“… a marvellously skilled player” –
Sunlight and Shade in the
art of Arthur Melville

kENNETH mcCONkEY

bright sunlight falls across the terrain in Arthur melville’s The
Chalk Cutting, (no 11), forming pools of colour in the shadows.
The narrow gauge rail tracks leading into the man-made defile
disappear under trucks loaded with freshly milled stone. The rest
is a mirage in which smudges can be read as birds in the fore-
ground and figures in the distance, barely visible in the glare.
Where is this dramatic limestone quarry? As the eye scans the
landscape abstraction for clues, the questions remain.

According to melville’s biographer, Agnes E mackay, it was
painted in 1898, at a time when melville was taken up by Wal-
ford Graham Robertson, the pupil of Albert moore and follower
of Edward burne-Jones.1 A wealthy young ‘Dorian Gray’, he is
best known today for his full-length portrait by John Singer Sar-
gent. His reminiscences of melville, a painter whose ‘… strong,
colourful work had been the inspiration, nay, the very origin of
what was known as the Glasgow School of Painting’, reveal that
Robertson was enthralled.2 Yet they were an ill-matched pair:
Robertson, eleven years younger than melville, was effete, while
the Scot was a ‘tremendously vital’, ‘breezy’ ‘athletic’ Empire boy
whose determination, even in his teens, had been formidable.

In the early 1870s the youthful melville regularly walked from
East Linton into Edinburgh to attend evening classes in drawing.
After his early successes at the Royal Scottish Academy and the
Royal Academy in 1875 and 1878 there was no going back. He

decamped to Paris and from there to Grez-sur-Loing where he
painted studies of peasants (no 1) alongside middleton Jameson,
bertha Newcombe and Frank O’meara.3 At the Salon of 1880
however, he found himself attracted to the work of Orientalists
such as Alberto Pasini, mariano Fortuny and benjamin-Constant,
and conceived the idea of a long trek across the Syrian desert to
discover the Orient for himself.

First, he returned to Scotland for the summer but was back in
Grez by October, and contrary to the belief of his later biog-
raphers he appears not to have set off for the middle East until
the following spring.4 Ensconced in Shepherds Hotel in Cairo,
surrounded by military and Civil Service types en route to In-
dia, the young melville fell for the daughter of an unidentified
colonial administrator, whose family immediately considered him
unsuitable. Delayed by illness and fruitless conquest, he finally
embarked from Suez in February 1882 for Aden and karachi, fol-
lowing the british Imperial route. Then, travelling up the Persian
Gulf he reached basra, and sailed on, up the Tigris and Euphra-
tes to baghdad, where he remained for several weeks, before set-
ting out across the desert to Asia minor, the balkans and Europe,
only to reach britain the following year. Along the way he was
chased by brigands, and detained by a local Pasha who thought
him a spy. Nevertheless he was not deflected from his purpose and
at one stage reported that he had completed ‘sixty big sketches’.5
These watercolours reveal a painter who had come prepared for
what he would see and they formed an essential repertoire. Revolt
of a Tribe (no 2) for instance carries unmistakable echoes of ben-
jamin-Constant and Pasini - one for his themes of captured rebels
and the other for the crisp delineation of moorish architecture
against cloudless cobalt skies.6

When he got back melville dined out on his adventures, and
backed them up with pictures. These were sent to London, Edin-

burgh and Glasgow exhibitions and while one example - The Call
to Prayer (unlocated) - was praised for its qualities of tone and
colour, WE Henley also considered that it lacked the brilliancy of
eastern sunlight.7 Thereafter the painter would often revisit these
defining experiences of sun-bleached courtyards, draped in co-
lourful Persian carpets, to intensify contrasts of colour and tone.
but artistic tendencies in Scotland were very different. Art stu-
dents were still flocking to Paris to imbibe the Rural Naturalism
of bastien-Lepage. by the time he visited the recently returned
John Lavery who was painting The Tennis Party at Cartbank in
the summer of 1885, melville realized that his contemporaries
had found their ideal subject matter on their doorstep. He had
already become friendly with James Guthrie at Cockburnspath
and they travelled to Orkney together. Physically and mentally
he was a long way from the dusty citadels of Cairo and baghdad
when he painted the standing Stones of Stennis (no 5). There were
nonetheless, sunny days on which he too adopted the lawn tennis
craze at marcus and kilmaron Castle (no 7), as he struggled over
a large canvas of Audrey and her Goats (Tate). This scene from As
You Like It, referred to as ‘my Touchstone’, was the most talked
about picture at the Glasgow boys’ inaugural London exhibition
at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1890.8

melville would never return to baghdad, but Spain and morocco
where he spent much of the early nineties would provide surro-
gates. Toledo for instance, where he witnessed The Procession of
the Corpus Christi, (no 8) took him to dazzling canopied streets
and steep perspectives. The moving crowd, ‘massed humanity’,
the most difficult thing to paint, was tackled with apparent ease.9
How did melville achieve these remarkable effects? Theodore
Roussel who married melville’s widow, told martin Hardie that
the painter would first soak his paper in diluted Chinese White,
presumably before stretching. He would then work into this sur-
face, ‘sponging out superfluous detail’. Sometimes, dropping blobs

of colour on glass placed on top of the basic composition, he
would establish the positions of ‘dominant accents’.10 These inge-
nious methods enabled him to perfect the Eastern experience and
answer Henley’s criticism with suitable brilliancy.

back in Spain in 1892, with Frank brangwyn, melville explored
the north. They hired a barge, the Santa Maria, and sailed along
the Ebro. The Welsh painter was keen to learn from the Scot
and he may well have witnessed melville painting splendid little
panels such as Boy on a Mule, (no 13) where, with one or two co-
lours the artist could describe a dramatic silhouette. Shape con-
sciousness, separating light from dark, forming a figure from its
background, was the by-product of a self-trained sensibility –
disciplined yet free.

Another small panel painted on this expedition acted as a sketch
for one of melville’s most ambitious paintings – Contrabandista
(no 14).

This exceptional canvas suggested itself as the train sped north
through the hills of northern Spain to San Sebastian. brangwyn
notes that his companion was fascinated by the ‘long shadows
[of] cold blue thrown by poplar trees’ across hills of warm grey
that were ‘scored with runnels of winter’s streams’.

…under the long shadows …we could see a goatherd surround-
ed by flocks of black goats, looking like spots of ink on the sun-
swept hills: above the swell of a hill a great white cloud hung.11

There was something dreamlike about this experience. If monet
painted a row of poplars, melville would paint the shadows of
poplars that were actually outside the picture. And to the roman-
tic adventurer, fed on the novels of Robert Louis Stevenson, the
humble goatherd and his flock became smugglers.

At Tangier, where in 1893 he painted the little souk, his genius
fed on complexity; his technique, christened ‘blottesque’, matched
serene skies and ethereal, stage-flat structures with the bustle of
street life. In Tangiers, (no 9) bobbing heads and colourful bour-
nous are cast into a kind of musical notation and given a lively vi-
sual syncopation. We make up the rest. When shown in London in
1894 it was described as ‘the highest form of impressionism’.12 by
this time no one could doubt melville’s mastery of the medium.
His Rialto (no 10) of that year was a dazzling performance. A low
viewpoint, also taken by Sargent and Jacques-Emile blanche, gave
ample scope in which to set the taut span of the bridge against
the free play of reflections. Other impressions include The Boat
Yard at San Trovaso, c. 1894 (kirkcaldy) and the resplendent Blue
Night, Venice, 1897 (Tate).

by all accounts around 1900, melville’s thoughts were increasing-
ly turning from watercolour to oil paint, and from visual report-
ing to grand biblical narratives - perhaps in rapport with those of
brangwyn. by this stage he had been introduced to Robertson by
James Jebusa Shannon and they had, despite their ‘many points of
dissimilarity’, become friends. The latter now became melville’s
studio assistant as, in a barn studio near Sandhills in Surrey, he
embarked on a series of big pictures – his ‘Christmas Carols’ – of
the Nativity and the Crucifixion. The Boy on a Mule became mary
in Christmas Eve: And there was no room for them in the Inn, for the
most finished canvas of the group.

Elsewhere in unfinished works there is the sense of someone
courting danger. ‘Accidents’, he declared, ‘are the makings of a
picture’.13 For him there would be no distraction from the compo-
sition of big looming masses and shapes not photographic details,
would be declared almost at the expense of legibility. Sadly this
project was cruelly interrupted by his death from typhoid in 1904.

Perhaps he was impressed by William Yorke macGregor’s quarry
landscapes at the New English Art Club when he painted The
Chalk Cutting.14 Yet macGregor lacks his lyricism. No one was
better equipped for the limpid pools of shadow than melville.
Little spots of bright light at the periphery act as anchor points,
but shadows ‘painted wistfully, with the sense that they hid mys-
teries…’ were his forte.15 Nothing could be more daring than this.
Faced with the impressive range of his work at the memorial
exhibition in 1906, Frank Rinder concluded that the athletic Scot
‘…played for accident’, and was ‘a marvellously skilled player’.16

1 Agnes E mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impressionist, 1855-1904, 1951,
(Leigh-on-Sea, F Lewis Publishers), p 130, no 80; see also Iain Gale, Arthur
Melville, 1996 (Edinburgh, Atelier books), p 99

2 W Graham Robertson, Time Was, 1932, (1955 ed., Hamish Hamilton),
pp 298-9

3 At one point middleton Jameson and melville painted from the same model
holding a sheaf of corn or rushes. See kenneth mcConkey, ‘Les peintres
britanniques et irlandais à Grez-sur-Loing’, Artistes du Bout du Monde, cahier
no 7, Automne 2011, p 7

4 I am grateful to mary Stratton Ryan for information drawn from the letters
of belle bowes, a Grez resident and girlfriend of Frank O’meara, who
reports that melville remained in Grez throughout the autumn of 1880, at
least until the end of November

5 mackay, 1951, p 49

6 kenneth mcConkey, ‘Incongruous Impressions: Scottish Painters’ Journeysat
the Turn of the Twentieth Century’, Journal of the Scottish Society for Art
History, vol 14, 2009-10, pp 82-3

7 ‘Current Art’, The Magazine of Art, 1883, p 346

8 Roger billcliffe et al, Pioneering Painters, The Glasgow Boys, 2010 (exhibition
catalogue, Glasgow museums), p 103

9 ‘The Works of Arthur melville at the Institute’, The Spectator, 13 January
1906, pp 18-19

10 martin Hardie, Watercolour Painting in Britain, volume 3, The victorian
Period, 1968 (bT batsford), p 201

11 Frank brangwyn, ‘Letters from Artists to Artists 1 – Spain’, The Studio, vol
1, no 1893, p 13; see also, mackay 1951, p 84

12 Quoted in mackay, 1951, p 101.

13 Robertson, 1931, p 308

14 macGregor’s A Rocky Solitude (National Galleries of Scotland) and A Quarry
(unlocated) were shown at the NEAC in 1897

15 T martin Wood, ‘The Art of the late Arthur melville RWS, ARSA’, The
Studio, vol xxxvii, may 1906, p 286

16 Frank Rinder, ‘London Exhibitions’, The Art Journal, 1906, p 86





1

La Paysanne a Grez 1880
Oil on canvas, 21½ x 12½ inches

Signed and dated

provenance J.S.R. byers Esq.; The Fine Art Society, 1973;
Private Collection, Scotland

exhibited Glasgow, kelvingrove Art Gallery and London,
Royal Academy, Pioneering Painters: The Glasgow Boys 1880–
1900, 2010-2011 (5)

literature I. Gale, Arthur Melville, Atelier books, Edinburgh,
1996, p 95; mcConkey, kenneth, Lavery and the Glasgow Boys,
exhibition catalogue, Clandeboye, County Down: The Ava
Gallery, Edinburgh: bourne Fine Art, London: The Fine Art
Society, 2010 (3)

On loan from a Private Collection.



2

Revolt of a Tribe 1882
Watercolour on paper, 35 ½ x 53 cm. (14 x 21 in.)
Inscribed lower left Revolt of a tribe, and signed and dated
lower right Arthur Melville / Baghdad 1882, with the

artist’s label on the frame

provenance mr Cox Cox, Invertrossachs, Callander, Dundee;
bought from the Artist, and thence by descent; Private Col-
lection, Spain

exhibited Edinburgh, Aitken Dott & Son, Arthur Melville
Exhibition, 1894 (?), loaned by J. C. Cox; Edinbugh, Royal
Scottish Academy, 1887, (881), loaned by J.C. Cox; munich,
Glaspalast, Jahrausstellung, 1891, (3102); London, Royal In-
stitute of Painters in Watercolour, Arthur Melville, January -
February 1906 (68), loaned by mrs Cox Cox; Glasgow, Royal
Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1907 (87)

literature A.E. mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impression-
ist, F. Lewis Publishers Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, pp 70 and
142 (266)



3

Awaiting an Audience with the Pasha 1882
Watercolour, 26 x 40 inches

Signed and dated Arthur Melville 1887, and inscribed with
the title, lower right

provenance The Fine Art Society; Private Collection

exhibited London, Dudley Gallery (Watercolour Society),
1883; London, Royal Watercolour Society, 1888 (199); Edin-
burgh, bourne Fine Art and London, The Fine Art Society,
Arthur Melville, 1996 (26); Glasgow, kelvingrove Art Gal-
lery and London, Royal Academy, Pioneering Painters: The
Glasgow Boys 1880–1900, 2010-2011 (127)

literature A.E. mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impression-
ist, F. Lewis Publishers Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, pp 70 and
147 (335); I. Gale, Arthur Melville, Atelier books, Edinburgh,
1996, pp 46 - 47 (illustrated, pl 34)

On loan from a Private Collection



4

Scarlet Poppies 1885
Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
signed Arthur melville, lower right

provenance The keith Collection; with The Fine Art Soci-
ety; Private Collection since 1985

exhibited Newcastle, Laing Art Gallery, 1906 (38); Notting-
ham, City of Nottingham museum and Art Gallery, Exhibi-
tion of Works by the late Arthur Meville, 1907 (10); Edinburgh,
bourne Fine Art and London, The Fine Art Society, Arthur
Melville, 1996 (22)

literature Agnes E. mackay, Arthur Melville, F. Lewis Pub-
lishers Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea 1951, p 143 (287); I. Gale, Arthur
Melville, Atelier books, Edinburgh, 1996, pp 42 and 45 (il-
lustrated, pl 33)

On loan from a Private Collection



5

The Stones of Stennis 1885
watercolour, 14 x 21 ½ inches
signed and dated, inscribed with title

provenance Robertson Collection, Orkney



6

Tobit’s Mill 1889
Watercolour, 10 x 15 ½ inches
Signed Arthur melville, lower left

provenance mrs morton Robertson n.d.; The Fine Art Soci-
ety, 1980; Robertson Collection, Orkney

exhibited London, Royal Society of Painters in Waterco-
lours, 1899, (63); Glasgow, Glasgow Institute of the Fine
Arts, 1907, (98); Edinburgh, bourne Fine Art and London,
The Fine Art Society, Arthur Melville, 1996 (33)

literature A.E. mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impression-
ist, F. Lewis Publishers Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, p 146 (323)

Although the precise location of Tobit’s mill has not been
identified, it seems likely this splendid study of a tree was
painted on the Thames, possibly near Pangbourne, where
the artist worked in 1889.



7

Tennis Party, Kilmaron Castle, Fife 1889
Watercolour and coloured chalks, 12 ½ x 16 1/8 inches
Inscribed lower right to Mrs Stratharn from Arthur Melville
September 15th 1989; inscribed lower left Kilmaron Castle

provenance Robertson Collection, Orkney

literature G. Smith (ed), Court on Canvas: Tennis in Art,
Philip Wilson Publishers, London, for The barber Institute
of Fine Arts exhibition, 2011, pp 60-61



8

The Procession of the Corpus Christi, Toledo, 1890
Pencil, watercolour and bodycolour, 30 ½ x 22 in

Signed, inscribed and dated Arthur. Melville/Toledo. 1890
lower left, inscribed again Corpus Christi lower right

provenance Caleb margerison; with Fine Art Society, Lon-
don, 1982; Private Collection, Edinburgh

exhibited London, Royal Society of Painters in Waterco-
lours, Summer 1891 (184); Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery,
Autumn 1891 (726); London, Royal Institute of Painters in
Watercolour, Arthur Melville, January - February 1906 (57).
Glasgow, Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts, 1907 (36).
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Twenty Years of British
Art 1890-1910, may - June 1910, (27); Edinburgh, bourne
Fine Art and London, The Fine Art Society, Arthur Melville,
1996 (47)

literature A.E. mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impres-
sionist, F. Lewis Publishers Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, p 141,
(255); I. Gale, Arthur Melville, Atelier books, Edinburgh,
1996, p 97



9

Tangiers, 1893
Watercolour, 34 x 24 in

provenance mrs Cox Cox and by descent to miss R Cox;
with The Fine Art Society; Private Collection, California un-
til 2013; Private Collection, England

exhibited Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, 1893 (409), Roy-
al Society of Painters in Watercolours, 1894 (79); Royal
Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1895 (573); London,
Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolour, Arthur Melville,
January - February 1906 (120); Nottingham, City of Not-
tingham museum and Art Gallery, Exhibition of Works by the
late Arthur Meville, 1907 (92)

literature A.E. mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impression-
ist, F. Lewis Publishers Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, pp 100 and
146 (321); I. Gale, Arthur Melville, Atelier books, Edinburgh,
1996, p 98

This watercolour when it was exhibited at the Grafton Gal-
lery in 1894 it was described in the London press as ‘the
highest form of Impressionism.’

On loan from a Private Collection



10

The Rialto, Venice, 1894
Watercolour

provenance Dr George melville; Robertson Collection, Or-
kney

exhibited Glasgow, Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine
Arts, 1896 (778); London, Royal Institute of Painters in
Watercolour, Arthur Melville, January - February 1906 (88);
Glasgow, Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1907
(116); Nottingham, City of Nottingham museum and Art
Gallery, Exhibition of Works by the late Arthur Meville, 1907
(18); London, The Fine Art Society, Lavery and the Glasgow
Boys, 2010 (ex. cat.)

literature The Studio, 1906, XXXvII, no.158, illustrated
p 292; A.E. mackay, Arthur Melville, Scottish Impressionist, F.
Lewis Publishers Ltd., Leigh-on-Sea, 1951, p 142 (267), il-
lustrated pl 4; I. Gale, Arthur Melville, Atelier books, Edin-
burgh, 1996, pp 82, 98, illustrated pl 70



11

The Chalk Cutting, 1898
Oil on canvas, 33 x 36 inches
Inscribed The Chalk Cutting/by/Arthur Melville/30 Melbury
Road/Kensington/W on a label attached to the stretcher

provenance The estate of Arthur melville; sale by instruc-
tion of the estate executors, Dowell’s Ltd., Edinburgh, 11
march 1922: The late Arthur melville, lot 30; with The Fine
Art Society, 1983; Richard Shepherd, Langan’s brasserie,
London

exhibited London, Royal Institute of Painters in Waterco-
lour, Arthur Melville, January - February 1906 (12); Glasgow,
Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, 1907 (86); Edin-
burgh, bourne Fine Art and London, The Fine Art Society,
Arthur Melville, 1996 (68)

On loan from the National Gallery of Scotland



12

Stable Boy with Fez, Soldiers Seated, Morocco
Oil on panel, 12 x 17 1/2 inches

Signed and inscribed with title verso



13

Boy on a Mule
Oil on panel, 12 x 15 ½

Initialled

Painted in Spain c. 1892



14

The Contrabandista, 1892
Oil on canvas, 39 ¼ x 32 in

provenance by descent to the artist’s brother, George
melville; the artist’s sister, minni Elliot; by descent to her
daughter, miss Elliot; miss Elliot’s sale, Edinburgh, Dow-
ell’s July 1968; The Fine Art Society; on loan to the National
Gallery of Scotland, 1998-2003; Private Collection

exhibited Dundee, museums and Art Galleries, Arthur Mel-
ville, November 1977 - June 1978 (35)

literature W. Hardie, Scottish Painting 1837-1939, 1976, il-
lustrated pl 77; I. Gale, Arthur Melville, Atelier books, Edin-
burgh, 1996, pp 70 and 98, illustrated p 71, pl 59

On loan from a Private Collection







Published in an edition of 500 copies by

The Fine Art Society

Dealers since
148 New bond Street
London w1s 2jt
+44 (0)20 7 629 5116
www.faslondon.com

ENQuIRIES
Patrick bourne [email protected]

ISbN
978-1-907052-30-9

DESIGN
Rowena morgan-Cox

PRINTED IN bELGIum
by Deckers Snoeck

Catalogue © The Fine Art Society, London
Text © the authors