Period (late 18th - early 19th century)
Title: Portrait of a Noble Gentleman
Medium: Oil on canvas
Provenance: From a private UK collection
Overall size with the early 19th century frame is 66cm x 56cm x 6cm and the painting measured at 39cm x 31cm
Description:
A very finely composed late 18th-early 18th oil on canvas half -length portrait of a noble gentleman very use to the work of the British school painter George Chinnery (1774–1852).
An English painter born in London, Chinnery spent almost all his career in the Eastern world. After leaving London in 1802 he worked in India until 1825 and then for the rest of his life in Macao, from which he made visits to Canton and Hong Kong. He made his living principally as a portraitist, but his reputation now rests mainly on the pictures of Indian and Oriental life and scenery that he made for his own pleasure.
Chinnery showed an early talent as a portrait painter in the traditions of Romney and Cosway. He entered the Royal Academy schools in 1792, and by 1795 had exhibited twenty portraits at the Academy. In 1796 he moved to Dublin and became Secretary of the Society of Artists in Ireland. In 1802 he returned to England and, later that year, left behind a wife and two children to travel to Madras as a painter for the East India Company.
In 1808, Chinnery moved to Dacca in Bangladesh and, by 1812, was in Calcutta, where he became the principal portrait painter. However, he also ran up a debt of c.30,000 rupees. By 1825 he had fled to Macau on the coast of China. In Macau he painted portraits (particularly of expatriate merchants) and made topographical drawings. He died in the city, aged 74.
Condition report. The painting has been cleaned and there is some retouching in the background. There is craquelure throughout but the paint surface is stable and even. There has been some infill and associated retouching but well blended to the extreme lower right-hand margin. The painting was relined approximately 50 - 80 years ago and the canvas is in good tension.
The frame is in excellent refurbished condition and is offered as a gift. See notes below regarding frames.
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Note:
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