Jennifer Smith, Justice of the Peace and retired London solicitor who has had a long association with Sri Lanka, presented a set of watercolours by the Irish artist, Andrew Nicoll (1804-86) to the Pathfinder Collection. The paintings were recently handed over to Milinda Moragoda, Founder of MMBL-Pathfinder.The Pathfinder Collection was established in 2018, and contains a range of Sri Lankan artefacts, including prints, maps, books, paintings, coins, stamps, seashells, and other items of historical value.
Andrew Nicoll spent a brief period in colonial Ceylon during which he taught drawing and landscape painting at the Colombo Academy. He also made a five-week long journey through the jungles of Ceylon during which he painted several subjects including ruined temples, tanks, and dagabas, some of which were used to illustrate Ceylon: an Account of the Island, Physical Historical and Topographical, etc, the classic two-volume work on the island written by then Colonial Secretary, Sir Emerson Tennant. Of this jungle sojourn Nicoll remarked that: ‘…it was the most interesting I ever had in my life…and will ever be considered by me the most delightful of all my sketching excursions, either at home or in distant lands.’
The watercolours of Nicoll, who was a prolific artist, can be found in the painting collections of the Colombo National Museum, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In addition, fifty six of his watercolours of Ceylon plants and trees were presented to Dublin’s Royal Hibernian Academy by his daughter in 1889 in memory of her father.