George Chinnery paintings sold to unnamed British buyers in London auction

A view of Macau looking towards the gardens of the Casa, with figures in the foreground

Two rare paintings by 19th century British artist George Chinnery, who spent the last quarter-century of his life in Macau, have sold in London for a combined 178,000 British pounds (1.84 million patacas).
Auctioneer Bonhams, one of the world’s oldest auctioneers of fine art and antiques, informed the Times yesterday that the buyers are based in the U.K., but said it could not disclose any more information about their identity.
Chinnery set the definitive tone and image of the former Portuguese enclave during the early 19th century, as understood by modern viewers.
Lawyer and historical researcher Ian Grenville Cross best summed up the influence of Chinnery in a 2015 article published in Macau Daily Times. “More than any other painter, he created the images that define in the popular imagination the city during the 27 years he lived here.”
“His paintings are not only works of art but important historical items for the research of Macau culture and social change,” local artist Ung Vai Meng had once said while serving as president of the Cultural Affairs Bureau.
The English painter departed Europe at the start of the 19th century for Asia. At first he carved out work as both a freemason and a painter in Calcutta, then the capital of British India, before leaving for Macau some 23 years later on account of his indebtedness. He would spend the rest of his days in the southern Chinese city, leaving an imprint on the lives of many.
“Chinnery was the only European professional artist who lived in China until late into the 19th century. This is an artist who lived in and made a home in Macau,” said Dr Patrick Connor, art historian and author of George Chinnery, 1774-1852. “As the market for landscape paintings was not that developed at the time, artists generally made their money through portraits. That is what Chinnery did in Calcutta – painted portraits of governors, military officials and their families – until he ran up huge debts and came to Macau.”
For Glenn Timmermans, an associate professor at the University of Macau with a background in issues spanning the arts and humanities, “Chinnery is hugely significant because he, almost alone, provides a detailed pictorial record of life here for a period of over twenty-five years, a visual legacy which few, if any, other cities or ports in China can claim.”
“It is impossible to imagine Macau [from this period] without Chinnery,” said Timmermans. “Our views of Shanghai, Xiamen, even Hong Kong, from this period, are largely of the waterfront or harbor, while in Macau we have that and much more. We have a better sense of some of Canton [Guangzhou], but that is because Chinnery spent time there too.”
“There were of course other artists travelling to Macau during this time, of whom Auguste Borget is probably the best known, and thus Chinnery is not alone in representing Macau,” conceded Timmermans. But Chinnery “immersed himself in the daily life of the city,” documenting ordinary people like fruit sellers and gamblers, as well as the distinguished personalities of the period, and in this sense, “he alone offers a full vista of Macau in the first half of the nineteenth century.”
Asked about the rarity of these works, Connor said the two oil paintings that went to auction last night were unusual among Chinnery’s works, as the 19th century artist typically painted in watercolor or drew sketches. He was also known for producing small, intricate pieces, rather than the larger oil paintings that went under the hammer last night.
Jonathan Wattis of Wattis Fine Art in Hong Kong, said that “Chinnery would go around drawing in pencil sketching details, and then later in more detail with pen and ink. These sketches would sometimes be incorporated later in paintings […] but there would be far fewer of them and so these oil paintings are quite unusual.”
The rare artworks proved popular among bidders. With the auctioneer’s cut considered, the two pieces fell in the upper bound of the estimates’ range, in what one art buyer told the Times was “good news for the industry.”
“The Grotto of Camões, Macau” depicts the monument named after Portuguese epic poet, Luís Vaz de Camões, which still overlooks the western point of the peninsula. It was estimated in the range of 60,000-80,000 British pounds prior to the auction, and sold last night for 87,563 pounds including the auctioneer’s cut.
“A view of Macau looking towards the gardens of the Casa, with figures in the foreground” is a landscape work understood to have been captured from a high point above the Inner Harbor. The pitched roof of the Grotto of Camões is visible among the trees of the Casa gardens in the middle distance. Estimated in the range of 70,000-100,000 pounds, the piece sold for 90,813 pounds.
“We are delighted that these two important and historical landscape paintings of Macau attracted such interest and achieved such good prices,” Bonhams senior specialist Rhyanon Demery told the Times last night, immediately after the sale.
Asked about the significance of these historical documents, Macau’s cultural authority said on behalf of the Macau Museum of Art that there were no representatives available to comment.
It was not immediately clear yesterday whether the local government had bid for the pieces or expressed an interest. “One can only hope that the Macau government has someone on the telephone this evening bidding for these two important pictures,” said Timmermans last night.
“These are two paintings that should end up in a Macau museum, as far as I am concerned,” concurred Wattis in a separate conversation.