George Chinnery’s paintings at the RAS

This week a copy of the international edition of Revista de Cultura has arrived the Library, and will be added to the Society’s collection of academic journals. This issue of the journal is dedicated to Macao’s arts, history and culture, with contents tying in with the 250th anniversary of the birth of George Chinnery (1774-1852), English painter who spent most of his life abroad in India and southern China. Dr Patrick Conner, an RAS Fellow, contributed an article on Chinnery’s works in the V&A Museum.

This has prompted me to look at the two watercolours by Chinnery in the RAS collection and their provenance. The two paintings share a similar subject matter, depicting what has been described as a ‘Muslim domed tomb’. One of the painting shows a solitary figure sitting in front of the structure (Head Cat. No. 015.051), while the other shows two people overlooking an open landscape (Head Cat. No. 015.052). The subtle interplay of light and shadow in the paintings strike me with a sense of mesmerising, almost timeless, serenity. To put it in a more sophisticated way, allow me to quote from Dr Patrick Conner’s article:

‘In most of his drawings Chinnery took great pains to represent every small detail with accuracy, but as he painted in watercolour, his chief concerns were effects of light, shadow and reflecting water, of mood and tranquillity, often achieved by presenting his subjects in later afternoon or dusk, with shadowed foregrounds and glimmering suggestions of the sun’s last rays. In many of his watercolours, topographical accuracy was not a priority. It was in this medium that ‘the poet’s eye’, to use Chinnery’s expression, became paramount.’

The exact location of the ‘domed tomb’ depicted in the paintings is unknown, but both paintings are dated to and around 1819, when Chinnery was living in India. During this period Chinnery worked on portrait commissions and produced a lot of watercolours, many of which depict similar domed structures, at different times of the day, such as this one in the V&A collection, which is listed as ‘a tomb or part of a temple, probably in Bengal, India’.

While many of the Chinnery paintings in the V&A collection were bequeathed by James Orange in the early 20th century, ours have a different provenance dated to an earlier time, having been donated to the Society in March 1834 by Colonel C. J. Doyle (1787-1848). They were originally part of an album (Head Cat. No. 015) consisting of paintings depicting traditional costumes across and beyond Asia, but had since then been removed from the album and housed separately.

In its Annual Report for the year 1834, the Society expressed gratitude to Doyle’s donation of ‘three volumes containing one hundred and fifty beautifully-executed representations of costumes, scenery and mythological subjects…only attainable to such an extent through the peculiar facilities afforded by Colonel Doyle’s official situation in India’. Before becoming an RAS member, Colonel Doyle had served as the Military Secretary to the Governor-General of India from 1813 to 1823, and no doubt it would prove no difficulty for him to acquire works from successful artists like Chinnery.

In fact, the Society has another painting (Head Cat. No. 01.005) attributed to Chinnery in its collection, depicting a Brahminy bull, a breed originating from India. It was donated to the Society in July 1832, by Richard Clarke, who would later become the Society’s Secretary. Clarke had retired from the Madras civil service at that time, and he probably donated the painting in response to the Society’s earlier appeal for information and drawings relating to several subjects, one of which being zoology of India (See Second Report of the Committee of Correspondence of the Society, March 1829). Although its entry in the Donations Register does not record the name of the painter, this oil painting has been described as typical of Chinnery’s work, with its use of striking chiaroscuro.

The Brahminy bull oil painting seems particularly fascinating as today Chinnery is chiefly celebrated for his portraits and landscape paintings, while the painter’s works depicting animals have predominantly survived in the forms of sketch and ink drawing.

All three paintings are available for viewing online in our Digital Library, so I hope you would enjoy exploring them from wherever you are.

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In other news, the Society is hosting an award ceremony next week on Thursday 12 June for the inaugural Norchi Prize, which will feature a talk by winner Dr Annika Schmeding on Afghanistan’s Sufis and civil society. The content of the talk will relate to Dr Schmeding’s book, Sufi Civilities: Religious Authority and Political Change in Afghanistan, for which she was awarded the prize. The Jury of the Norchi Prize has noted that the book is a rare account of how Sufi leaders responded to moments of transition in a highly insecure environment, and how humanity can pierce darkness in times of turmoil.

The event will be held in-person and online, free and open to all, so we hope to see many of you join us physically and virtually in celebrating Dr Schmeding’s achievements!

James Liu