Andrew Nicholl RHA

Warship off Gibraltar

Watercolour on paper, 44 x 70cm

Signed

He found patronage under Sir James Emerson Tennent, who funded a trip to London in 1830-1832. He exhibited his work at the RHA in Dublin and at the Royal Academy, London.

Tennent's patronage also secured for him an appointment as teacher of landscape drawing, painting and design at the Colombo Academy (later Royal College, Colombo) in Sri Lanka.^[2] He embarked for Ceylon in August 1846, crossing Egypt by camel to the Red Sea, returning to Britain in 1849.^[3] After his trip to Ceylon he developed a more colorful style and painted the flower pieces that he has been remembered for.^[4] He rewarded his patron (by then Colonial Secretary) by illustrating parts of the latter's descriptive book about the island, Ceylon, Physical, Historical and Topographical. A watercolour entitled The Great Sphinx with a pyramid of Khufu and another boat of Aden indicate other stops on this voyage.

He died at Camberwell on 16 April 1886 and was buried at West Norwood Cemetery. The Ulster History Circle has a blue plaque to him at his birth house at 10 Church Lane, Belfast.

Andrew Nicholl 1804 - 1886

Seraphin Gallery, Jenkintown, PA