China: A young Chinese woman, painted by George Chinnery (1774-1852).

George Chinnery (5 January 1774 – 30 May 1852) was an English painter who spent most of his life in Asia, especially India and southern China. Chinnery was born in London and after training in England became a famous portrait painter in Ireland by 1802. He married his wife Marianne on 19 April 1799 in Dublin. His father owned several trading ships and his elder brother, William Chinnery, owned what is now Gilwell Park. He was a close friend of the artist, William Armfield Hobday.

Chinnery ran into debt and went to India in 1802 on a ship named Gilwell. He there re-established himself as a painter, but debt prompted a move again in 1825, when he went to southern China. While in China, he mentored Lam Qua, who eventually became a renowned medical portrait painter. He travelled around the Pearl River Delta, between Macau and Canton (now Guangzhou). He had been to Hong Kong after the British founded the city, and subsequently fell ill. He died in Macau in 1852 and is buried in the Old Protestant Cemetery there.

Other than artistic value, his paintings are historically valuable as he was the only western painter in South China between the early and mid 19th century. He presented the life of common people and landscape of the Pearl River delta at that period. Chinnery left sketches for creation of other paintings.

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Supplier: CPA Media Co. Ltd.

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Pictures From History