George Chinnery RHA

(Tipperary 1774-1852 Macau)

The Grotto of Camoes, Macau

Footnotes

Provenance
Collection of the Viscounts Strathallan, Strathallan Castle, Auchterarder, Scotland before 1910
Collection of Sir James Roberts, and thence by descent

Chinnery painted another version of this subject, of similar size but differing in the arrangement of the figures in the foreground, (see P. Conner, George Chinnery, 1774-1852, p.186, pl.65; and Sale, Sotheby's London, 12 July 1995, lot 112, sold for £88,000).

The Grotto took its name from the Portuguese epic poet, Luis Vaz de Camoes (c.1524-1580) who was exiled to Macau in the 16th century and whose most celebrated work, Os Luisada, is traditionally believed to have been written on this spot in 1557. The Grotto stood in the very substantial gardens of what was known as the Casa, an impressive house leased from the merchant Manuel Pereira overlooking the Inner Harbour at Macau and which was the residence of a succession of senior members of the East India Company until the Company's monopoly ended in 1834. The grotto, amongst a cluster of granite rocks, was a romantic visitor attraction which overlooked the western point of the peninsula. The British bought a plot of land within the grounds of the Casa from Pereira for the purposes of creating a Protestant burial ground where Chinnery himself was buried and where a memorial to him still stands.