Dated 1816

Pencil on lined paper laid down on card, framed

Provenance: Formerly with Spink and Son

23.8 by 17cm.

Chinnery was one of the greatest of British artists to travel to India in search of better prospects. He was certainly the last of the truly important artists to settle in the sub-continent. His journey to India may also have been encouraged by an almost neurotic disposition for which society in India might prove a more forgiving refuge as it had proven to be for many Britons of less orthodox character.

As much as he relied on patronage from British society, Chinnery’s disposition would not allow him to endure its company without frequent escapes to the countryside. He took great delight in fleeing the strictures of portraiture and indulging in landscapes of bucolic villages on the outskirts of Calcutta and would happily have spent “the fag end of life in quietness and ease” which this escape provided him. This drawing is one that he made on such an occasion. The village, though not identified, appears in a number of his drawings and must have been a favoured place of refuge.