A bearded Chinese man in spectacles, by George Chinnery, in pen and ink over pencil

Drawing in pen and ink over pencil of the head and shoulders of a bearded man

Provenance: purchase from P & D Colnaghi in 1921.
This drawing came to the museum as part of an album containing drawings by George Chinnery.

George Chinnery (1774-1852) was born in London, the son of a ‘writing master’ and shorthand-writer. He exhibited miniature portraits at the Royal Academy from 1791 to 1795, and enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools in 1792. In 1796 he moved to Dublin, where he enjoyed some success and began to paint landscapes and large portraits in oils.
In 1801 he returned from Ireland to London, prompted perhaps by the abolition of the Irish Parliament and the exodus of many potential patrons.

In June 1802 Chinnery sailed to Madras (Chennai), where his brother was employed by the East India Company; his Irish wife followed him sixteen years later. Settling in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1812 he established himself as the pre-eminent Western artist in British India.

In Calcutta Chinnery received many lucrative portrait commissions, both public and private, yet he fell increasingly – and for reasons which remain unclear – into debt. He decamped briefly to the Danish settlement of Serampur, where British civil law did not apply. To escape his creditors he sailed finally to the China coast in 1825, making his home in the Portuguese enclave of Macau.

Macau was at this time frequented by European and North American merchants. Their trade with China was conducted entirely through the port of Canton (Guangzhou) some seventy miles away, but they were obliged to leave Canton at the end of the trading season; at this point they would go to Macau, where their families were permitted to live throughout the year. Thus Chinnery was able to join a prosperous and cosmopolitan community.

Macau remained his home until his death there in 1852 (with excursions to Canton between 1825 and 1832, and to Hong Kong in 1846). His sitters included not only the Westerners but the Chinese ‘hong merchants’ and the Tanka boatwomen (included in this drawing) who piloted the Westerners in their small craft. He also developed his drawing skills, which he had exercised earlier in India but which now became his primary occupation; he annotated his sketches with the Gurney system of shorthand which he no doubt learned from his father. He set out every morning (he claimed) in search of fresh compositions to be sketched before breakfast.

Chinnery never freed himself from debt, living in his latter years on the charity of his landlord. But he was greatly esteemed by his contemporaries for his dinner-table wit, his longevity and his unfailing skill as a draughtsman, which inspired many followers and imitators.

Substantial collections of his drawings are held by institutions in London, Hong Kong, Macau, Salem (Mass.), Lisbon and Tokyo. Most of the V&A’s large collection was acquired in 1928 from James Orange, an early partner in the Hong Kong-based architectural firm of Leigh & Orange.

The elderly Chinese man wears a close-fitting cap, and looks down through round spectacles tied around his ears.

E.2153-1921