Arriving in Chennai I found myself thinking of the great English painter George Chinnery (1774-1852). Madras (today’s Chennai) was where he first lived on arriving in India in 1802. From Madras he moved to Calcutta, where he was hugely successful: it was there too that he had two sons with a local woman.
So far as I know, neither Chennai nor Kolkata preserve any trace of the great artist’s presence. The Victoria Memorial in Kolkata
is rumoured to posess two Chinnery paintings, but no one seems to have actually set eyes on them. Needless to add they would be of great value if they were ever to be found.
From Calcutta Chinnery moved to Macau
in 1825 (reportedly to escape his wife, the luckless Marianne) and it was there that he died. His grave
is in the Old Protestant Cemetary
which adjoins a charming little church
.
A street has also been named after Chinnery
but it is not the street on which he lived (and painted), which was, as his gravestone says, No 8, Rua de Ignacio Baptista.
There is still a number 8 on that street.
Although it bears little resemblance to an artist’s studio it struck me that Chinnery might have enjoyed painting it.
