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A Chinese Gatekeeper

How Qua

Street Scene, Macao

 

George Chinnery (Chinese: 錢納利; 5 January 1774 – 30 May 1852) was an English painter who spent most of his life in Asia, especially India and southern China.

Early life

Chinnery was born in London and after training in England became a famous portrait painter in Ireland by 1802. He married his wife Marianne on 19 April 1799 in Dublin. His father owned several trading ships and his elder brother, William Chinnery, owned what is now Gilwell Park. He was a close friend of the artist, William Armfield Hobday.

Career

Chinnery ran into debt and went to India in 1802 on a ship named Gilwell. He there re-established himself as a painter, but debt prompted a move again in 1825, when he went to southern China.

While in China, he mentored Lam Qua, who eventually became a renowned medical portrait painter. He travelled around the Pearl River Delta, between Macau and Canton (now Guangzhou).

He had been to Hong Kong after the British founded the city, and subsequently fell ill. He died in Macau in 1852 and is buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery there.
Watercolour on ivory of Catherine Sherson, 1802–03[1]

Works

Other than artistic value, his paintings are historically valuable as he was the only western painter in South China between the early and mid 19th century. He presented the life of common people and landscape of the Pearl River delta at that period. Chinnery left sketches for creation of other paintings.

He had learnt shorthand from his grandfather and he used his modified shorthand for jotting quick notes on sketches.

Legacy

The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation has a collection of Chinnery's works because of his connection to Hong Kong. The bank, together with the Hong Kong Museum of History and Hong Kong Museum of Art, held an exhibition in the museum of history from 6 June to 29 August 2005.

Notes

1. ^ "Portrait of Catherine Sherson, born Taylor". Paintings & Drawings. Victoria and Albert Museum. http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/12145-popup.html. Retrieved 2007-10-17.

References

* Impressions of the East - The Art of George Chinnery, Hong Kong Museum of History, 2005
* Hutcheon, Robin, "Chinnery, the man and the legend," South China Morning Post Ltd, Hong Kong, 1975, with a chapter on Chinnery's shorthand by Geoffrey W. Bonsall.
* Hutcheon, Robin, "Chinnery", Formasia Ltd, Hong Kong, 1989.


Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/ ", Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

 

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