CHINNERY.
Illustrated
131
Some readers may not be quite familiar with the fame of Chinnery, and I am further indebted to "Old Mortality" for the following extract from the London Times of Saturday, December 10, 1932, describing an art exhibition, at which the works of George Chinnery R.H.A., were shown. The account reads:-
"Of special interest to those with Indian connexions dating from the days of "John Company" there has been arranged at the Tate Gallery a loan exhibition of works by George Chinnery R.H.A. (1774-1852) oil paintings, water-colours, miniatures, and drawings.
"Chinnery was one of the many artists Sir William Foster gives a list of 61 in his "British Artists in India" in the last publication of the Walpole Society - who went to India between 1760 and 1820 in the hope of making money. In Chinnery's case, there was another reason - he wanted to get away from his wife. The same reason, coupled with debts, sent him to China and finally to Canton, where he congratulated himself: "Now I am all right. What a kind providence is this Chinese Government that it forbids the softer sex from coming and bothering us here." Mrs. Chinnery, who had followed him to Calcutta, where she married off a daughter, gave up the pursuit and returned to England to live at Brighton, but Chinnery moved on from Canton to Macao, where he remained for the rest of his life, sending occasional portraits from there to the Royal Academy.
"Evidently Chinnery was - as he looks in his self-portrait lent to this exhibition from the National Portrait Gallery - an incurable Bohemian, and William Hickey, who admired his work, described him as "a confirmed and incurable lunatic." In India, he painted portraits of the Earl of Moira, afterwards Marquess of Hastings, the Earl of Minto, and other English officials, many portraits of native princes and soldiers, officials and merchants, and an enormous number of water-colours and sketches of Indian life and scenery, and in China, he worked with equal industry. He was not a great artist - not even in the same rank as Zoffany, Ozias Humphry, and Arthur Devis, who also worked in India - but he was lively and entertaining, and he had a good eye for a picture.
"The best of the oil paintings at the Tate Gallery is "The Sampan Girl" in a white suit, apparently engaged upon her toilet. This has something of the blunt and slightly clumsy dignity that we associate with Opie, a dark line in the costume being used with excellent effect to define the forms." "Dent's Verandah at Macao," with three figures and a dog begging, illustrates the leisure of contemporary officials; and "The Hat Shop," Chinese, with Baroque movements in the figures across a very firmly realized architectural setting, is a thoroughly entertaining picture. Some of the water-colours are excellent - firm, direct, and simple in a manner that occasionally recalls Cotman. "River with Sampans, China," "Ruin with Pipul Tree," and "Landscape with Hut and Figures, India," are quoted.
Chinnery paintings are much sought after nowadays, and their value is constantly increasing. It might be recalled that examples of this artist's work are included in the Chater collection bequeathed to the people of Hongkong.
ILLUSTRATION.