Old Master Day Sale including Old Master Paintings, Drawings and British Works on Paper
Old Master Day Sale including Old Master Paintings, Drawings and British Works on Paper
Property from an Important Southern Collection, United States
Lot Closed
July 29, 12:58 PM GMT
Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from an Important Southern Collection, United States
GEORGE CHINNERY
London 1774 - 1852 Macau
WATERFRONT BUILDINGS, MACAU; AND THE PRAYA GRANDE, MACAU
a pair, both oil on canvas
unframed: each 26.8 x 40.4 cm.; 10½ x 15⅞ in.
framed: each 43.5 x 56.6 cm.; 17⅛ x 22¼ in.
(2)
Please note: Condition 11 of the Conditions of Business for Buyers (Online Only) is not applicable to this lot.
To view Shipping Calculator, please click here
With Spink & Son, London, August 1987.
The peninsula of Macau has served as a sanctuary for Westerners ever since the Portuguese were allowed to settle there in the 1550s. They were excluded from the Chinese mainland by a wall built across the isthmus, but their settlement prospered, largely through trade with Japan and Manila. They built forts on the hills for use against the Dutch and English, which by the early 18th century had usurped Portugal's position as the leading Western traders in the East.
By the time of Chinnery's arrival in 1825, the Praya Grande was flanked by a shallow crescent of fine two-storied houses, often supplied with verandas and columns or colonnades and faced with the shell-based stucco known as chunam. Many of these were rented by foreign trading companies; for some years the East India Company occupied two of the most imposing structures, with pilasters and central pediments, which stood immediately to the south of the Governor's Palace. None of the buildings depicted by Chinnery on the Praya Grande survives today, and much of the bay itself has been reclaimed.