Andrew Nicholl, R.H.A., Irish 1804-1886- Elie House in Mutural, Colombo, Ceylon; pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour on paper, 22 x 31 cm. Provenance: Sir James Emerson Tennant and by descent in the family.; Anon. sale, Christie’s, London, 23...

Andrew Nicholl, R.H.A.,

Irish 1804-1886-

Elie House in Mutural, Colombo, Ceylon;

pencil, pen and brown ink and watercolour on paper, 22 x 31 cm.

Provenance: Sir James Emerson Tennant and by descent in the family.; Anon. sale, Christie’s, London, 23 Sept. 2005, lot 29.

Note: A sketch of the house belonging to the Colonial Secretary Philip Anstruther, later occupied by the artist's patron Sir James Emerson Tennent, who described it thus: 'It stands on the ridge of a projecting headland, commanding a wide prospect over the Gulf of Mannar, and in the midst of a garden containing the rarest and most beautiful trees of the tropics.' Emerson Tennent was Colonial Secretary in Ceylon from 1845, and was, like Nicholl, a Belfast man. For similar views by Nicholl, see Christie’s, London, 29 October 2019, lot 102 (part) and Sotheby's, London, 16 November 1989, lot 123.

Nicholl exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1832. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1832 to 1854, and moved to live in London in 1840. He arrived in Ceylon in 1846 on the paddle-steamer Precursor from Falmouth, the successful applicant for the post of teacher of Drawing at the Colombo Academy. He accompanied Emerson Tennent 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 1859.
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