Kew avenue from my own gate near Colombo, Oct 31 1848; and Elie House, Mutural, Colombo – a sketch

The Belfast-born Nicholl arrived in Ceylon on 26 September 1846 on the paddle-steamer Precursor from Falmouth, the successful applicant for the post of teacher of Drawing at the Colombo Academy. He accompanied Sir James Emerson Tennent, the Civil Secretary to the Government of Ceylon, on his official tour of Ceylon in July-August 1848, and published his A Sketching Tour of Five Weeks in the Forest of Ceylon; Its Ruined Temples, Colossal Statues, Tanks, Dagobahs, etc. in the Dublin University Magazine in 1852. He left Ceylon in 1849 and later furnished Emerson Tennent with illustrations for his Ceylon; an Account of the Island, Physical Historical and Topographical etc. published in two volumes in 1859.
The second is a sketch of the house belonging to the Colonial Secretary Philip Anstruther, later occupied by the artist's patron Emerson Tennent, who described it thus: 'It stands on the ridge of a projecting headland, commanding a wide prospect over the Gult of Maunar, and in the midst of a garden containing the rarest and most beautiful trees of the tropics.' For the finished watercolour see Sotheby's, London, 16 Nov. 1989, lot 123.