Tanka Boats off the He'-Ang Shan, China

Details

George Chinnery (1774-1852)
Tanka Boats off the He'-Ang Shan, China
inscribed, dated and numbered 'Tanka boats/off He'-ang Shan' and further numbered 'Sept. 6. no. 3' (on the reverse)
pencil, brown ink and watercolour, fragmentary watermark WHATMAN
4¼ x 5¾ in. (11 x 14.5 cm.)

Provenance

Major A.J.S. Wilson; Christie's, London, 22 November 1977, lot 82.
with Anthony Reed, London.
with Davis & Long, New York, where purchased for the present collection.

Exhibited

New York, Davis & Long, English Sketches and Studies, 7-25 November 1978, no. 40.

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The present watercolour is a particularly fine example of Chinnery's landscape, executed with a wet brush and fluid strokes in contrast to his rather staccato pen and ink drawings with their dots and dashes. Despite being a prominent figure in Dublin artistic circles; in 1802 he abandoned his family and sailed from London to Madras and from there to Calcutta and he was in Dacca from 1808-1812. In 1825 to escape both his wife and creditors he moved to Macao and spent the rest of his life between Macao, Hong Kong and Canton. The ban on European women in Canton enabled him to avoid his wife again. He died in Macao in 1852.

A similar view, Boat Dwellings, Macao, is reproduced in Martin Hardie, Watercolour Painting in Britain, London, 1968, vol. III, pl. 63.

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