3-016-756 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Turner Gold Medal Prize Landscape, by F. Walton, 1864. Engraving of a painting. 'The scene...is one of those among the Surrey hills so well known to the landscape-painters of the metropolis. The view is taken from one of the hollows in the side of Leith Hill, looking towards Aldershott, Guildford is just discernible in the distance, and on the horizon is faintly traceable the peculiar contour of the hill and landmark known as the Hog's Back. The road descending the declivity of the hill from the immediate foreground is deeply cut into the marl of the district, the warm, dusky, golden hues of which afford so fine a contrast to the luxuriant greens of the foliage. To the right is a breast-high fern-brake which the hedger trims by the footpath. High on each side, with their roots exposed by the crumbling banks, are young chestnut, ash, and other trees, and through and beyond their lower leaves and boughs in shadow the sunlight glints and quivers magically. Down the road a farmer's daughter or dairymaid drives cows to the farmyard, to new grazing, or their nightly inclosure; and at the very bottom of the hill nestles a most picturesque farmstead... Beyond, the blue distance rolls away to the ranges of pale, far-off hills'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.