Chinnery painted more than a dozen self-portraits, the first of which he exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1798; this is the most intimate and engaging of them all. An enigmatic figure, Chinnery was eccentric and volatile, with a tendency to hypochondria, a raconteur and wit with a gift for friendship. This likeness was painted in China and must date to the years 1825–28. Its first owner was the United States consul Benjamin Chew Wilcox, a businessman in the opium trade who commissioned a full-length portrait of himself from the artist (The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd.).
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Title:Self-Portrait
Artist:George Chinnery (British, London 1774–1852 Macau)
Date:1825–28
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:8 5/8 x 7 1/4 in. (21.9 x 18.4 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Rogers Fund, 1943
Object Number:43.132.4
The English artist George Chinnery spent almost his entire career in Asia, settling first in India and later in China. This canvas was probably painted between 1825, when Chinnery moved to China, and 1828, when he signed and dated the portrait of Benjamin Chew Wilcocks (Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), this painting's first owner. One of the most prominent Americans in China, Wilcocks engaged in the opium trade with Turkey, and later with India, for nearly twenty years, dividing his time between Canton and Macau. He was appointed United States consul in China in 1812. In 1827, he departed for his native Philadelphia, evidently shipping back his own portrait, the present self-portrait, and two other paintings by or after Chinnery of Chinese merchants from the Canton trading group, the Co-Hong.
Chinnery exhibited the first of his many self-portraits at the Royal Academy in 1798. He made more than a dozen others—paintings, drawings, and miniatures. Several show him as he appears here, seated and facing three-quarters to the right, holding his palette in his left hand. All but the face is unfinished in this small canvas, which lacks the smooth, porcelain-like surface and fine detail typical of his commissioned works. Although the handling is free, infrared reflectography reveals a careful preparatory pencil sketch of the head, including the shadow of the eyeglasses. The collar and the end of the tie are loosely indicated. By all accounts, including Chinnery’s own (Conner 1993), he was odd-looking, with bushy hair and eyebrows, wide nostrils, jowls, and a soft, full mouth with a projecting lower lip. This work, treated in 2009, is among the most intimate and engaging of the self-portraits, with its small size, relatively rough technique, and palette of browns and vermilion highlights. Most are dated on the basis of the sitter’s appearance.
[2012; adapted from Baetjer 2009]
Benjamin Chew Wilcocks, Macao, China, and Philadelphia (until d. 1845); by descent to his granddaughter, Mrs. Percy Madeira, later Mrs. Campbell Madeira, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia (in 1927; bequeathed to Reath); her niece, Mrs. Benjamin B. Reath, Merion, Pa. (sold to Woodhouse); Dr. Samuel W. Woodhouse Jr., Philadelphia (by 1932–d. 1943; his estate sale, Samuel T. Freeman & Co., Philadelphia, November 15–16, 1943, no. 317, to The Met)
Artists' Fund Society of Philadelphia. "8th Annual Exhibition," 1843, no. 40 (as "Portrait of the Artist by G. Chinnery," lent by B[enjamin]. C[hew]. Wilcocks).
Salem, Mass. Peabody Museum. "George Chinnery (1744–1852) and other artists of the Chinese scene," May 1–September 30, 1967, no. 4.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Portrait of the Artist," January 18–March 7, 1972, no. 17.
Joseph Downs. "The Chinese Trade and Its Influences." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 36 (April 1941), p. 94, points out that Benjamin Chew Wilcocks, who was consul in China from 1814 until 1820, brought back this self-portrait by Chinnery as well as two portraits by Chinnery of Wilcocks's Chinese merchant friends.
Sale of the Dr. Samuel W. Woodhouse, Jr. Collection. Samuel T. Freeman Art Galleries, Philadelphia. November 15–16, 1943, p. 52, no. 317.
Margaret Jeffery. "A Memento of the China Trade." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 4 (October 1945), pp. 55–57, ill., notes that Wilcocks was one of the most prominent American merchants engaged in the China trade, and brought this picture back with him in 1827.
Albert Ten Eyck Gardner. "Cantonese Chinnerys: Portraits of How-qua and other China Trade Paintings." Art Quarterly 16 (Winter 1953), pp. 310–11, fig. 1, mentions that the pose is almost identical to the head in Chinnery's full-length self-portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 18.
Richard Ormond. "George Chinnery's image of himself: Part 1." Connoisseur 167 (February 1968), pp. 91, 93, no. 4, ill., notes that Chinnery repeatedly used this pose, that is, seated in a chair and facing to the right, "looking out obliquely over his shoulder".
Richard Ormond. "George Chinnery's image of himself: Part 2." Connoisseur 167 (March 1968), p. 160.
Robin Hutcheon. Chinnery: The Man and the Legend. Hong Kong, 1975, pp. 64, 157, ill. p. 52, dates it 1825.
Patrick Conner. George Chinnery, 1774–1852: Artist of India and the China Coast. Woodbridge, England, 1993, pp. 240–41, 301 n. 18, pl. 158.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 202, ill.
Katharine Baetjer. British Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1575–1875. New York, 2009, pp. 226–27, no. 111, ill. (color).
Josephine C. Dobkin. "Chinnery and Houqua: Questions of Attribution." Metropolitan Museum Journal 48 (2013), p. 209, fig. 8 (color).
Sir Edward Burne-Jones (British, Birmingham 1833–1898 Fulham)
1868–77
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