Research and catalogue essays on Sri Lankan modern and pre-modern art, and on the antiquarian books, maps and magazines of Ceylon.https://malakatalwatte.com/en-gbhttps://malakatalwatte.com/publications/how-the-images-of-ceylon-were-made/https://malakatalwatte.com/publications/how-the-images-of-ceylon-were-made/Before photography, an image of Ceylon reached the world only as a print. The three families of printmaking behind those images, how to tell them apart on the sheet in front of you, and why two apparently identical impressions of the same view are not worth the same.Tue, 28 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBefore photography, an image of Ceylon reached the world only as a print, copied onto metal or stone by hand and pulled off in ink. Prints may be broadly divided into three principal groups. ## Relief prints Woodcuts, metal cuts and wood engravings are relief prints. In a woodcut, a design is left in relief by chiselling or cutting away the surrounding areas of a wooden block. The print is made by applying ink to the raised surface and pressing the block down on to the paper. Woodcuts and wood engravings, the latter capable of very finely detailed lines, are usually printed in black and white. This is the oldest method of printing and was long a popular way of illustrating books. ## Intaglio prints Engravings, etchings, mezzotints and aquatints are intaglio prints. In an engraving, the design is cut directly into a metal plate with a sharp pointed tool called a graver. In etching, the design is drawn with a needle through a thin layer of wax laid over the metal. The plate is then immersed in acid, which bites only where the metal is exposed; it is inked and wiped so that the ink remaining in the incised or bitten lines is forced out on to the paper under pressure. From the 1820s and 1830s, steel plates increasingly replaced the softer copper. As de Silva notes, the greater hardness of steel allowed much longer print runs and finer, more consistent lines, which is why so many of the illustrated Ceylon books of the mid-century are steel engravings rather than copper-plate work. In mezzotint, the metal plate is first roughened all over with a curved, serrated tool called a rocker. Each pit holds ink, producing an even, velvety black; the surface is then burnished down in varying degrees to reduce the ink held and achieve the required lightness of tone. Characteristically the engraver works from dark to light, so that the design emerges from the black ground. The process is used chiefly for the reproduction of portraits. In aquatint, powdered resin is sprinkled on to a metal plate and fixed by heating. When the plate is etched, the acid bites around the tiny resinous particles; on printing, usually in two or at most three colours, a fine, crazed effect is obtained. Gradations of tone are achieved by varying the density of the resin. ## Lithographs The design is drawn on stone, or more commonly a zinc plate, with a greasy crayon. The surface is dampened with water, which settles only in the undrawn areas, the grease repelling it elsewhere. The plate is then rolled with greasy printing ink, which adheres only to the drawing while the water repels it from the rest of the surface; a separate plate is required for each colour. The ink is transferred by laying the paper face down on the stone and rubbing its back. Lithography superseded aquatint around the 1840s. Unlike relief or intaglio prints, lithographs bear no plate impression. That last point is worth holding on to, because it is the one test a collector can apply without any equipment at all. An intaglio plate is pressed into damp paper hard enough to leave an indented rectangle a little larger than the image, and that impression survives on the sheet. Where the mark is absent, the sheet is not an intaglio print. ## Hand-colouring Many early prints of Ceylon were printed in monochrome, or in a limited range of colours, and then finished by hand in watercolour. As de Silva records, this colouring was often carried out by teams working to an approved pattern print, so that impressions of the same view might vary considerably in their tints. A distinction should therefore be drawn between a print coloured by hand after printing and one printed in colours from the plate itself. The distinction runs through the Ceylon material. The aquatints after Samuel Daniell and the sepia lithographs after Charles O'Brien were coloured by hand, while the aquatints after Henry Salt were printed in colours from the plate. James Stephanoff is found in grey aquatint, and the plates after John Deschamps were lithographed and then coloured by hand. Two impressions of the same view, both genuine and both of the period, may therefore differ considerably in their colouring and in what they are worth. Where colour was applied by hand, it is the quality of that hand, and the condition in which the colour has survived, that separates one sheet from another. *This summary of printing techniques draws on R.K. de Silva, Early Prints of Ceylon (1985), the definitive guide to the English topographical views of the island.*Malaka Talwattehttps://malakatalwatte.com/publications/charles-freegrove-winzer/https://malakatalwatte.com/publications/charles-freegrove-winzer/Charles Freegrove Winzer represented Poland at the Venice Biennale at twenty-one and counted Matisse a friend. In Ceylon he turned the younger painters away from the Royal Academy manner and towards a modern art rooted in the island. The heritage he taught them to value was the same heritage he helped remove.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT**The Dominance of the Ceylon Society of Arts (CSA)** Art in Ceylon in the early twentieth century was governed, in both institutional and aesthetic terms, by the Ceylon Society of Arts (CSA). Founded as the Colombo Drawing Club by Sir Noel Walker and renamed in 1887, the CSA held its first major exhibition on 7th of December 1892. By the 1900s it had aligned itself firmly with the conservative tradition of the Royal Academy in London, championing a Victorian realism that had little room for the international currents reshaping European painting. The CSA’s most influential promoter was Mudaliyar A.C.G.S. Amarasekara, an academic portraitist and art teacher whose authority shaped the annual exhibition, a fashionable social event timed to coincide with August Race Week. The critic L.C. Van Geyzel memorably characterised the cultural climate of Colombo as “if not quite a cultural desert, at best a genteel wilderness.” The city had no public art gallery. Modernist developments in European art, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, were effectively absent in official exhibition spaces. Some individual artists had encountered reproductions of French modern art, among them a young George Keyt, who is thought to have obtained lithographic copies through Hugh Modder, possibly the first person in Ceylon to circulate high-quality reproductions of modern European works. But without institutional support, and in the face of the powerful lobby centred on Amarasekara, there was no viable platform from which to challenge the CSA’s orthodoxy. **Winzer’s Arrival and the Founding of the Ceylon Art Club** Into this environment came Charles Freegrove Winzer. Appointed Inspector of Art by the colonial government in 1920, an Education Department role supporting the subject in schools, he brought with him not only formal training in Paris but direct personal acquaintance with the leading modernists of the age. Around 1922 he founded the Ceylon Art Club, providing it with rooms in a working-class district of Colombo. The Club held annual exhibitions explicitly positioned as a counter to what Winzer called the capital CSA’s “artistic standard of picture postcards and plagiarism of Royal Academy catalogues.” Portrait of Henrietta de Fonseka by C. F. Winzer- She is the daughter-in-law of S. R. de Fonseka Sr., (Mudaliyar) after whom de Fonseka Road is still named. Henrietta married his only son, S. R. de Fonseka Jr. (de Fonseka Website) Winzer’s critique was not simply aesthetic: it was cultural. He argued that a genuinely modern art for Ceylon could not be built by imitating Western academicism, nor by mechanically transplanting Parisian modernism. It had to emerge from a synthesis- modern in form and sensibility but rooted in the islands’ own ancient traditions. In his final address to the Art Club in 1931, he articulated the challenge with characteristic directness: “Our materials are different, our conditions are different, the demands of the public are different and the public must be trained and enlightened by us sufficiently, not only to appreciate our work but also that of the past... The eternal qualities of art as shown at Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa should be studied, adapted to our life, and a continuity with them achieved. I may add that this continuity is closer to the decorative conceptions of modern art than to the realistic, true-to-life prettiness and cheap harmonies of academic achievement.” **Keyt, Beling, and the Art Club Circle** The Art Club’s most enduring contribution was the space it provided for a younger generation of artists working outside the CSA’s orbit. Among those Winzer took under his wing were George Keyt and Geoffrey Beling, both of whom would later become founding members of the ‘43 Group. Lionel Wendt, lawyer, photographer, and cultural impresario, is believed to have facilitated the introduction, though his absence in London between 1919 and 1924 meant that the initial period of mentorship was Winzer’s alone. *Early (1929) painting by Keyt depicted the landscape and people of Kandy, naturalistic and representative, very carefully structured and solidly organised, with clear form and serene, tranquil compositions very similar to works by Winzer at the time perhaps who himself was inspired by Gaugain’s work* Martin Russell, in his biography of Keyt, documents the direct imprint of Winzer’s aesthetic programme on the younger artist’s early paintings of 1927–29. Works from this period reveal what Russell identifies as “the assimilation of Winzer’s conception of the gracefulness of Sigiriya with the use of the calligraphic line”, a synthesis that attempted to graft European naturalism onto the forms and postures of ancient Ceylonese art. Russell notes a comparable influence on Beling’s work of the same period, observing that the two painters’ output was not only stylistically similar to each other but closely aligned with the themes and approaches Winzer advocated. **The Exhibitions and the Critical Controversy** The Art Club exhibitions of the late 1920s and early 1930s were flashpoints for a wider debate about the direction of art in Ceylon. The 1929 show included works by Winzer, Keyt, Beling, Daraniyagala, George de Niese, and J. D. A. Perera, with an opening address by the pro-modern Dr. Paul Pieris. The local press was dismissive: one reviewer reduced Keyt’s Kandy landscapes to the observation that they were “largely occupied by trees in the foreground.” The January 1930 joint exhibition of Keyt and Beling at the Ferguson Memorial Hall proved more incendiary. Winzer, writing from Nepal, contributed a pointed foreword attacking the prevailing “artistic standard” of the CSA. Mudaliyar Amarasekara responded in the Ceylon Daily News, invoking a certain Dr Hyslop on “cases of genius akin to madness” and characterising modern art’s defenders as “impostors or degenerates.” The counter-riposte came from Lionel Wendt, whose witty and scathing letter silenced Amarasekara publicly. Wendt also translated for the Times of Ceylon a review of the exhibition by Pablo Neruda, then a Chilean diplomat stationed in Colombo, who wrote admiringly of Keyt’s work. It was the first time a sustained and public opposition to the CSA’s aesthetic monopoly had been mounted in Ceylon. The May 1930 Art Club exhibition was notable for another reason: it included what appears to have been the first exhibited painting of a female nude by a Sri Lankan artist. The work was Keyt’s Govindamma, depicting a South Indian dancer. **The Rupture and Winzer’s Departure** The Art Club’s final years were marked by internal friction as well as external hostility. At the May 1931 exhibition, critical comment reached what Russell describes as a level of “almost too fatuous for quotation,” and divisions within the Club were deepening. Winzer held his farewell exhibition in January 1932. Within months of his departure, the Art Club collapsed following a dispute at its annual show, during which Daraniyagala removed his works from an unfair hanging, and Wendt, emerging from behind a screen, removed those of Keyt and Beling in solidarity. The Club had served its purpose: it had given the artists the courage to pursue a new path. *C. F. Winzer (Times of Ceylon Annual)* **Origins and Early Career Of Winzer** Charles (Henry D.) Freegrove Winzer was born in Warsaw, probably around 1886, the third child of Julius Charles Winzer, a British merchant and pro-consul, partner in a major wholesale business in the Kingdom of Poland and his wife Leonie Mary Lesser. The family’s cosmopolitan character was established early: his paternal grandfather, Julius Ernst Winzer (1830–1899), was a German musician born in Bremen who became bandmaster of a British regiment before settling in Staffordshire as a musical-instrument dealer and china merchant. Educated in Warsaw and England, Winzer trained as an artist in Paris, where he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne from 1909. His emergence was precocious: in 1907, aged approximately twenty-one, he represented Poland at the Venice Biennale, an exhibition where fellow participants included John Singer Sargent, Frank Brangwyn, and Auguste Rodin. His entry, a watercolour titled Il Pavone (The Peacock), announced an artist already operating at an international level. *A work done in Paris in 1913 by Winzer with heavy influence of the artists at the time. Particular see style and colour of Matisse as well as subjects looking similar to those depicted by Degas* His Paris years brought him into the circle of the central figures of European modernism. He knew Picasso and Modigliani as contemporaries and became a close friend of Henri Matisse. In March 1911 he shared an exhibition at 3 Rue du Colonel Combes, Paris, with Modigliani, the Portuguese artist Amadeo de Sousa Cardoso, and Rodolphe Balint. He also showed sketches alongside the Camden Town Group at the Carfax Gallery, London, in 1912, and had a solo exhibition at the Ashnur Gallery, Paris, in 1914. **The First World War and Internment at Ruhleben** The outbreak of war in 1914 interrupted a career that had been building steadily. Winzer’s sister Alice had married his German artist friend Baron Götz von Seckendorff in early 1914; her husband was killed at Cambrai in August, one of the war’s first casualties. Winzer, working for the French and Belgian Red Cross, attempted to visit the widowed Alice in Germany. Despite holding valid papers, he was stopped at the Swiss frontier and interned at the Ruhleben camp near Berlin for the remainder of the war. The long and, as he considered it, improper detention appears to have damaged his mental health. He participated in the first two Ruhleben camp exhibitions and produced lithographic illustrations for the camp magazine; the Australian War Memorial holds a number of these works. His engagement seems to have diminished from 1916. After repatriation he illustrated a collection of poems by James Elroy Flecker and provided drawings for R.F. Johnson’s Chinese Drama (both 1921). The French poet Paul Claudel wrote a sonnet to accompany a showing of Winzer’s work at the Galerie Vildrac in Paris in May 1919, a recognition, if a belated one of his standing in European cultural life. **Ceylon, Nepal, and Final Years** His appointment as Inspector of Art in Ceylon in 1920 coincided with his sister Alice’s remarriage in Italy to Count Camillo Borgia. He held the Ceylon post until 1931, during which time he also painted in mainland India and, apparently in 1928–29, in Nepal, then a closed state to foreigners, which he accessed through a personal connection with its ruling prince. His sole Asian work recorded on Art UK, Music for Ganesha (1929), depicts a Nepalese temple figure group and was presented to the National Museum of Wales in July 1930 by his friend and patron Evan Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar. After leaving Ceylon, Winzer appears to have settled in Venice, though he continued to exhibit in London, at the Warren Gallery on Maddox Street, where his patrons included the French Princess Murat and the socialite Violet Trefusis (née Keppel). His lithographs were held by the British Museum and the Museum of Western Art in Moscow. He died on 19 February 1940, at the Warneford Hospital in Oxford, an institution for the treatment of mental illness. Whether he had come to England for personal reasons or to escape the war’s approach to Italy (which did not formally enter the conflict until June 1940) remains unclear. **The Memorial Exhibition and Critical Reception** The Winzer Memorial Exhibition, held at the National Gallery of Ceylon in March 1941, was an eloquent indicator of his standing. It was organized, with some irony, by the Ceylon Society of Arts, the institution Winzer had spent a decade opposing, whose adaptation to changing taste was itself a measure of his influence. Lionel Wendt played a central role in assembling both the works and the catalogue. The then Governor of Ceylon, Sir Andrew Caldecott opened the exhibition and was greeted by the President of the CSA, Mr. G.A. Wille and its Secretary Dr. G. P. Malalasekera signifying the great importance given to this memorial exhibition. The response to the exhibition was unreserved. The Ceylon Daily News wrote that “anywhere in the world he would be considered an important artist; for Ceylon he has the added attraction of being one of the very few artists who have portrayed this country and its people with accuracy and understanding.” Wendt’s tribute in the Observer Pictorial of 1940 was among the most generous assessments of any artist writing in Ceylon at the time: “His love for this country and its peoples is everywhere apparent in his work. No one before him, and, after him, no one yet has translated into paint and pencil the colour harmonies peculiar to Ceylon, and the grace of posture and movement natural to the Sinhalese and the Tamil.” Wendt also drew attention to Winzer’s contribution to art education, noting that he had transformed the teaching of art in schools by focusing not on imitation but on preserving each child’s own capacity for creative expression. His influence, conveyed through visits to schools across the country, was acknowledged after his death by the establishment of an art circle named in his honour in Jaffna. **Winzer and the ‘43 Group** The most significant measure of Winzer’s legacy is the ‘43 Group, which emerged three years after his death. The Group brought together Keyt, Wendt, Beling, Daraniyagala, and others, and is widely regarded as the foundational moment of Sri Lankan modernism. Martin Peries, in his thesis ‘The ‘43 Group and its Legacy in Sri Lanka,’ draws directly on the scholarship of Bandaranayake and Dharmasiri to establish the connection: “Winzer’s view on the state of art in Sri Lanka and his opposition to the British academic style prevalent at that time gave expression to the ‘43 Group’s impetus, stressing the need to preserve local culture. He promoted the idea that Sri Lankan artists should look to, and study, their own traditional arts for inspiration in creating their modernist styles of art.” It should also be noted that Daraniyagala, who pursued his studies at the Slade School of Art in London on the advice of Augustus John, is known to have been acquainted with Winzer, a connection whose full significance has yet to be explored. *Charles Freegrove Winzer - ‘Cholera Goddess Procession’ (Figures in an Indian or Sri Lankan Rural Landscape), oil on board, signed, indistinctly inscribed and dated 1928 recto, titled label inscribed ‘To Delaney Little 25 July 35’ verso, approx 31cm x 38cm.- courtesy Tooveys* **The Colonial Contradiction: Neruda’s Account** Any honest assessment of Winzer’s role in Ceylon must also reckon with its darker dimension. While serving as Inspector of Art, Winzer was also appointed Acting Archaeology Commissioner, a role that brought him into direct participation in the colonial appropriation of Sri Lanka’s material heritage. The most vivid account of this aspect of his work comes from Pablo Neruda, who served as Chilean consul in Colombo in the early 1930s and moved in the same circle as Winzer, Wendt, and Keyt. In his memoirs, first brought to scholarly attention in Sri Lanka by Ismeth Raheem in a 2024 article in the Sunday Times, Neruda describes accompanying Winzer on an official expedition: “Excavations had brought to light two magnificent cities the jungle had swallowed up: Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa ... Naturally, everything the excavations had brought to light was carefully packed and went on its way to the British Museum, London ... My friend Winzer was pretty good at his work. He went to remote monasteries and, to the enormous satisfaction of the Buddhist monks, he loaded the official van with marvelous stone sculptures, thousands of years old, that would end up in England’s museums. The look of contentment on the saffron-garbed monks was something to see, when Winzer would leave them painted celluloid Buddha images made in Japan as replacement for their own antiques ... My friend Winzer was an excellent product of the Empire, an elegant short-changer.” The passage is devastating in its precision. The same man who urged Ceylonese artists to draw sustenance from the “eternal qualities of art as shown at Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa” was simultaneously overseeing the removal of those very works to institutions in Britain. Winzer’s vision of cultural continuity was, in this respect, fatally compromised by his position within the colonial apparatus. This contradiction does not negate his contribution to modern art in Ceylon. But it does require that his legacy be understood in its full complexity, as the work of a gifted, cosmopolitan, and genuinely sympathetic figure who was also, to borrow Neruda’s phrase, an “elegant product of the Empire.” The question of restitution, of what was taken from Sri Lanka and placed in foreign museums without the consent of its people, remains live, and any celebration of Winzer must hold space for that reckoning. Without Winzer’s mentorship, it is possible that modern art in Ceylon would have developed along purely imitative lines, reproducing Western styles without the distinctive cultural grounding that gives Sri Lankan modernism its particular character. The ‘43 Group, which emerged three years after his death, was in a real sense the fruition of seeds he had planted. At the same time, Winzer’s story reminds us that the history of art cannot be clearly separated from the history of power. The same colonial system that gave him the platform to foster an indigenous modern art also made him an instrument of cultural extraction. To remember Winzer fully is to hold both of these truths at once. **Bibliography** - Archer, W.G. (1959) *India and Modern Art*. - Art UK (n.d.) ‘Winzer, Charles Freegrove (1886–1940)’. Available at: Art UK (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Bandaranayake, S. and Dharmasiri, A. (2009) *Sri Lankan Painting in the 20th Century*. Colombo: National Trust of Sri Lanka. - British Museum (n.d.) ‘Winzer’. Available at: British Museum Collection (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Claudel (n.d.) ‘Winzer’. Available at: Claudel Image Archive (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Daraniyagala, R. (2011) *Justin Daraniyagala: Oil Paintings*. Published by Arjun Daraniyagala. - De Fonseka (n.d.) ‘Winzer Art of the De Fonseka Family’. Available at: De Fonseka Family Website (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - De Soysa, R. (2016) *The ‘43 Group – Origins, Aims, Activities and Legacy*. PowerPoint presentation delivered to the National Trust of Sri Lanka, 29 September. - De Stefani, A. (2015) ‘Modigliani alla Cité Falguière’. Available at: Academia.edu (Accessed: 11 May 2026), p. 257. - De Stefani, A. (n.d.) *Modigliani alla Cité Falguière: la prima fase della scultura nel suo contesto immediato*. Available at: Academia.edu (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Dharmasiri, A. (1988) *Modern Art in Sri Lanka: The Anton Wickramasinghe Collection*. - *Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte della Città di Venezia: Catalogo Illustrato (1907)*. Venice. - Freiman, J. (n.d.) ‘Remembering Ruhleben: A Reimagined Harvard Law School Library Digital Exhibit’. Available at: Harvard Law School Library (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Gallica (n.d.) Available at: Gallica Archive (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Goonetilleke, H.A.I. (1989) *George Keyt: A Life in Art*. Colombo. - Holroyd, M. (2010) *Augustus John: The New Biography*. - Neruda, P. (2001) *Memoirs*. Translated by H. St. Martin. Paperback edn. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. - Ondaatje, C. (n.d.) Email correspondence with author regarding portrait painting of Henrietta de Fonseka by Winzer. - Pieris, M. (2020) *The ‘43 Group and its Legacy in Sri Lanka*. PhD thesis. University of Newcastle. - Raheem, I. (2024) ‘When Winds of Modernism Blew into 1920s’ Ceylon’, *The Sunday Times*, 23 June. Available at: The Sunday Times Sri Lanka (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Roberts, M. (2021) ‘The 43 Group in Ceylon – The Story’. Available at: Thuppahi’s Blog (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Russell, M. (1950) ‘George Keyt: Introduction and Biographical Notes’, *Mag*. - *Revue d’histoire de l’art de l’Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis (n.d.)* Available at: (Accessed: 11 May 2026). - Weeraratne, N. (1993) *43 Group – A Chronicle of Fifty Years in the Art of Sri Lanka*. Melbourne: Lantana. - ‘What Ceylon Art Owes to Winzer’ (1941) *Ceylon Daily News*, 26 March, p. 5. - Wendt, L. (1940) ‘Winzer’, *Ceylon Observer Pictorial*.Malaka Talwattehttps://malakatalwatte.com/publications/andrew-nicholl-in-ceylon/https://malakatalwatte.com/publications/andrew-nicholl-in-ceylon/Andrew Nicholl reached Ceylon in 1846 as the first teacher of landscape and scientific drawing at the Colombo Academy. A five week tour of the interior with Emerson Tennent gave him his sketches, and the rebellion of the following year came close to costing him his life.Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTA view of Galle Face Green, Colombo. Watercolour with scratching out, 49 x 71.2 cm. Originally in the possession of Spink, London. Collection: The Talwatte Collection. Andrew Nicholl was one of the greatest artists to visit and sketch in Colonial Ceylon. He was born in Church Lane, Belfast, on April 4, 1804, to Henry Nicholl, a boot and shoemaker. His elder brother William Nicholl, who was ten years senior to him had a business in town as a ships’ chandler and flax merchant. William was an amateur landscape painter whose work is in the possession of the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He encouraged Andrew to draw and when the Belfast Association of Artists was founded in 1836 with Hugh Fraser as its president, William and Andrew were among its earliest members. At fourteen, Andrew was giving lessons to the likes of Montague Talbot, the Manager of the Belfast theatre. At eighteen, Andrew Nicholl apprenticed as a compositor under printer Francis Dalzell Finlay, who later started the Belfast newspaper *The Northern Whig*, where Andrew Nicholl then worked for seven years in the letterpress department. At the time, a liberal young politician named James Emerson was also a contributor to *The Northern Whig* and it is believed that it is through this newspaper that Andrew Nicholl met James Emerson who would go on to be the force behind his journey to Ceylon. James Emerson was also born in Belfast in 1804, the same year as Andrew Nicholl. Though he studied in Trinity College, Dublin he did not complete a degree there as his interests were more in politics and natural history. He went to Greece with Robert James Tennent in 1824 where he took part in the war of Greek independence as a lieutenant of the artillery. In 1830 he wrote *History of Modern Greece*. He was called to the English Bar at Lincolns Inn in 1831; though there is no evidence of him practising as a lawyer. He later married Letitia Tennent, the only daughter of William Tennent, a wealthy Belfast banker. Following the demise of his father-in-law, he adopted the name of James Emerson Tennent and inherited lands in Antrim, Fermanagh, and Sligo. He was elected M.P. for Belfast in 1832 under Prime Minister Lord Grey but later supported the new Tory administration of Prime Minister Peel as Lord Grey had been forced to resign after disagreements with his cabinet over Ireland. Further evidence that Andrew Nicholl and Tennent were in contact is via a sonnet written by Tennent’s younger sister, Eliza in 1830 entitled ‘On my being presented with a beautiful, coloured drawing of flowers, executed by Mr. A Nicholl’. At this time both Andrew Nicholl and Emerson Tennent were in London. By this time Nicholl had already made a name for himself as a painter after a series of works on the Antrim Coast. In London, Nicholl spent a considerable time at the Dulwich College Gallery copying paintings in its collection. His style changed considerably at this time with the inspiration of the likes of Turner, which is evident in his later work including those he drew of Ceylon. He exhibited his paintings for the first time at the Royal Academy, in 1832. He moved in the same year to Dublin and exhibited at the ‘Royal Hibernian Academy’ and contributed works that were engraved for the *Dublin Penny Journal*. Over one hundred wood engravings based on his drawings were used to illustrate ‘Ireland: its scenery, character, etc.’ by Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall. This was published in three volumes from 1841-43. A letter by S. C. Hall dated 1840 to Andrew Nicholl requesting sketches of Wexford County gives an address in Belfast for Nicholl and refers to ‘Mrs. Nicholl’, indicating that he was married at the time. Nicholl moved back to London in the same year (1840) and continued supplying illustrations to publications. He also tried his hand at poetry, one of which, titled ‘Sunset’, was published in the Dublin University Magazine of 1844. *Each wilding flower that clothes the pathless wood* *In a rich golden blaze of colour glows,* *The distant landscape, now so heavenly bright,* *Assumes the varied hues of Sunny even,* *Steeped in a glorious burst of yellow light,* *The last bright gleam of parting day from heaven.* Ceylon, the Lake of Minery, c.1870. Pencil, watercolour and body colour. Purchased by Queen Victoria in 1870. Collection: Royal Collection Trust. Meanwhile, Emerson Tennant was appointed as Joint Secretary to the Board of Control by Prime Minister Peel. From 1841 to 1843 he was also made Secretary to the India board and was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1845. He then gave up his parliament seat in 1845 to take up the appointment as the Civil Secretary to the Colonial Government of Ceylon. After Tennant's departure to Ceylon, Andrew Nicholl was appointed as the first teacher of landscape, painting, scientific drawing, and design at the Colombo Academy (later Royal College). To qualify for this post, Nicholl had to undergo training at the Ordinance Survey Department in Somerset House in mapping and engineering drawing. It is believed that Nicholl's appointment was likely due to Tennent's influence. Nicholl left for Ceylon in August 1846. At the Colombo Academy, Nicholl would train teachers in producing professionals - such as draughtsmen rather than artists. An example of the work done by Nicholl during this time is available at the Ulster Museum and is a decorative floral pattern resembling a wallpaper design inscribed 'Ceylon 1846'. The falling of Prime Minister Peel's government in Britain necessitated the change of the Governor of Ceylon, from Sir Colin Campbell to Lord Torrington, a cousin of the new Prime Minister, Lord John Russel. The new governor was ignorant of his job and disliked Tennant as he was considered a Tory and thus shunned a man with great ability and knowledge of Ceylon. It is recorded that Tennant had invitedAndrew Nicholl for St. Patrick's Day dinner at his residence Ellie House in Mutwal on March 17, 1847, indicating that the two men were on friendly terms in Ceylon. In July of the same year, Tennent took Nicholl as his draftsman. Together they went on an official tour through the interior of Ceylon, which lasted for five weeks. They initially travelled from Colombo to Kandy with Dr. Gardner, Director of the Peradeniya Gardens and Dr. Williams, a medical doctor. They were joined in Kandy by Captain Galway and Lieutenant Evatt. The party also included cooks, horse-keepers, and labourers. The landscape surrounding the Kandy Lake and the ‘Dalada’ or the sacred tooth of the Buddha, were of great interest to Nicholl. From Kandy, they continued their travel on a palanquin to Matale and then on to Dambulla, where the rock temple was examined in detail. From Dambulla, they moved through the jungles northwards where they visited the ruins of Topare (Polonnaruwa). From here they travelled to the mountain of Mihintale and subsequently to Anuradhapura. In Anuradhapura, Nicholl stayed two extra days with District Judge Tranchill and sketched the ruins found in the area. The rest of the group travelled without Nicholl to Arippu. On July 26, Nicholl was dropped off, back in Dambulla by Tranchill as he had planned to go to Kandy. From there he returned to Colombo by coach. Nicholl who was travelling now from Dambulla with a guide, horse-keeper and two coolies, met with crowds of villagers fleeing into the jungle. It is from this crowd that Nicholl learned that a rebel king had been crowned in the Dambulla Temple and that his followers were killing Europeans. Nicholl then changed course back to Anuradhapura and on his way learnt that the new king had set his men out to capture him. He got back to the safety of Tranchill’s house in Anuradhapura and came back to Colombo via Arippu but ill with jungle fever, on August 10, 1848, with his sketches safely in hand. *“Thus, terminating my sketch tour through the forests of Ceylon, he writes, the most interesting I ever had in my life; and although attended with both danger and fatigue, yet the enjoyment which I derived from it far more than compensated for the hardship of the journey, and will ever be considered by me the most delightful of all my sketching excursions, either at home or in distant lands.”* (Nicholl Scrapbook) The Kandy revolt of 1848 was by two pretenders from the Southern provinces. The administration led by Lord Torrington declared martial law in Kandy and dealt with this revolt very severely which later caused criticism in Britain. Nicholl drew a Kandyan pretender and a rebel Buddhist monk who were imprisoned in the Welikada jail, and engravings of these drawings were published in the Illustrated London News of June 7, 1851. Following his return to London, Nicholl exhibited three pictures at the Royal Academy in 1849 of which two were of Ceylon: ‘The Fort of Colombo, Ceylon, from the Galle face - Christmas Day’ and ‘Galle Harbour, Ceylon’. He further exhibited work related to Ceylon at the Royal Academy in 1850, 1852 and 1854. Meanwhile, in 1850, Emerson Tennent was recalled from Ceylon but was soon appointed as Governor of St. Helena. Though he would turn down this appointment later on, he became a Member of Parliament for Lisburn in 1852 and was appointed as Secretary to the Poor Law Board and Secretary to the Board of Trade. It is during this period that Tennent worked on his two-volume account of Ceylon, which to date is considered one of the most important works on the island. On March 17, 1855, Tennent writes to Nicholl about the use of his illustrations in the book: “*My dear sir,* *My work on Ceylon is at last gone to press, and will be published by Longman in 2 vols 8vo. With about 80 (of) your illustrations large & small which are now in the hands of the engraver.* *But there is one matter in which I want your kind aid, if you can assist me. A scientific draftsman, Woolf, is employed by Longman’s to make 3 drawings of the attitudes of the elephants during their struggles in the Kraal.* *The animals, he will do well, as he makes studies from living elephants in the Zoological Gardens, but he is at a loss for foliage. He has no sketches of Ceylon trees, and especially of creepers and climbing plants, and straggling roots above ground.* *Now it occurs to me, that you may have some rough sketches of these that would enable Woolf to make the foregrounds in character with Ceylon vegetation. And if you would lend them to me, for that purpose, you see what an advantage it would be to me.* *Here is the text from page 37 of the article, presented exactly as it appears in the source:* *If you can oblige me in this matter, please would you put the sketches in a packet and send it by post, addressed to me, Board of Trade Whitehall London, marking it in the corner ‘private’.* *With best regards to Mrs. Nicholl & Mary Anne.* *Faithfully yrs. * *J. Em. Tennent. * *I will be responsible for the safe return of the sketches to you.”* It is not sure if Nicholl heeded Tennent’s request but the frontispiece of volume one of Tennent’s *Ceylon* contains an image of ‘Noosing wild elephants’ and contains foliage in it. The letter also is one of the earliest references to Mary Anne, Nicholl’s daughter. The latter part of Nicholl’s life was spent in London, Dublin, and Belfast. He continued to teach and paint. His later works are in the collection of the Ulster Museum. Branch of the Cup Leaf Tree, October 29, 1847. Watercolour. Collection: The Talwatte Collection. In 1850, Queen Victoria purchased two watercolours done by Nicholl of Ceylon for the Royal Collection for 30 guineas each, namely ‘Ceylon: the point de Galle’ and ‘Ceylon, Esplanade and fortification of Colombo. But as per records of the ‘Royal Collection Trust’, Nicholl presented a further twelve watercolours to Queen Victoria on March 15, 1870, of which ‘Ceylon: The lake of Minery (Minneriya)’ was purchased by Her Majesty for 20 guineas. A few more watercolours not related to Ceylon by Nicholl were also purchased for the Royal Collection by Queen Victoria. Nicholl also presented a volume of sketches done in Ceylon to the print room of the British Museum in 1883. Two of these sketches of ‘the Hindoo Temple, Maradana, near Colombo’, remain. Ceylon: the Pont (point) de Galle, C.1848-9, watercolour, 48.6x69.5cm. Purchased by Queen Victoria in 1850. Collection: Royal Collection Trust Andrew Nicholl died in London on April 16, 1886, at the age of 83, at his home at 7 Camberwell Grove. A month after his death a large exhibition of his work was held at 55, Donegall Place in Belfast. Over two hundred and eight works were exhibited. In February of 1889 fifty-six watercolour studies of trees and plants of Ceylon were presented to the Royal Hibernian Academy by Mary Anne Nicholl in memory of her late father. The National Museum, Colombo has in its collection twenty-eight watercolour drawings by Andrew Nicholl which were presented by the late Dr. Paul E Pieris in July 1949. No records are available on how Dr. Pieris acquired them. The watercolours are mostly large and are of exceptional quality. Prominent landscapes of Colombo and its environs, Dambulla, Ruins of Polonnaruwa and Elephants Kraals are some of the subjects featured in these watercolours. Some are based on the sketches Nicholl did during his famous 5-week tour of the island. Colossal Recumbent Figures of the Buddha and standing figure of Ananda, Galviharaya, Polonnaruwa, C. 1848.C originally in the collection of Sir Emerson Tennent. Collection: The Talwatte Collection The watercolours were conserved at the British Museum in London with the generous patronage of the Jardine Fleming Group in 1997-8. The complexity of Nicholls’ technique became evident upon the examination of the watercolours by the restorers at the British Museum. He had used gum Arabic to highlight and intensify the dark browns and rich greens. This gum was sensitive to moisture. Nicholl had also mixed or glazed greens and browns with gamboge yellow or red lake colours which were also very unstable when in contact with water or bleach. With the pressure of time in hand, the team at the British Museum were able to complete the restoration and send the watercolours back to Colombo in time for its unveiling and exhibition at the Colombo Museum to mark 50 years of independence, an event which was graced by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales on February 5, 1998. [Share](https://malakatalwatte.substack.com/p/belfasts-finest-in-ceylon-the-story?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share) **References** Anglesea, Martyn, (1982), ‘Andrew Nicholl and His Patrons in Ireland and Ceylon’, *Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review*, Vol. 71, No. 282, pp. 130-151 De Silva, R. K., (1998), *Newspaper Engravings of Ceylon*, Serendib Publications Millar, D., (1995), *The Victorian Watercolours in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen*, 2 vols, London Royal Collection Trust, www.rct.uk Lakdusinghe, S. and de Silva R. K., (1998), *Exhibition of Andrew Nicholl watercolours at the National Museum Colombo*, Catalogue printed by the Department of National MuseumMalaka Talwatte