'A Close View in a Chalk Pit at Upper Deal in Kent' (Bray album) RMG PT2036

'A Close View in a Chalk Pit at Upper Deal in Kent' [Bray album]
No. 61 of 74 (PAJ1976 - PAJ2049)
Titled as above and dated and signed 'AVpGB June 74' (to the life by Gabriel Bray), this was made near Bray's home in the summer before he sailed for Africa.
It is one of 73 drawings by him (plus one signed 'NF 1782') preserved in a 19th-century album. They have now been separately remounted. Bray (1750-1823), was second lieutenant of the 44-gun ‘Pallas’ under Captain the Hon. William Cornwallis (1744-1819) – later a well-known admiral - on two voyages (1774-77) to report on British interests in West Africa, including the slave trade. The dated drawings refer only to the first of these, from December 1774 to September 1775, though a few may be from the second. Others comprise country views, some of Deal, Kent (where Bray may have come from), and others of social-history interest.

A Close View in a Chalk Pit at Upper Deal in Kent