Before the sea was properly charted, mapmakers filled it with whatever they imagined might be there, and the results are among the most enjoyable drawings in the history of cartography. Melville belongs to that tradition. Its whales carry turtles on their backs and move across an ocean of small, regular waves, heading in both directions at once with no apparent destination.
The handling is engraved. Everything is built from fine parallel lines, the swell of a whale's flank, the ripple of the water, the shell of a turtle, and the tonal range comes from the density of that hatching rather than from washes of colour. It is a disciplined technique applied to a fanciful subject, and the contrast is what gives the design its dry humour.
A 68.5 cm half-drop repeat on a wide 0.69 m roll gives the whales room to swim and staggers them between drops, so the sea reads as continuous rather than as ranks. The width of the roll also means fewer seams. It is very good in a bathroom or a cloakroom, on a stair, or in a room for a child that an adult would also be glad to sit in. The drawing is quiet enough at close range that a small room will not tire of it.
