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  • The article argues that George Chinnery's arrival in Macao (1825–1852) is not to be explained primarily by commercial motivations or by the search for "new subject matter" for a European audience, but rather by a personal need to escape his creditors in India. Paradoxically, this decision afforded the artist the consolidation of a "second homeland" in which he found a visual repertoire capable of corresponding to his skills and aesthetic conceptions. Drawing on a comparative analysis of drawings, watercolours, and albums circulating in the art market, the text reconstructs the evolution of his manner of drawing, articulating earlier phases (London and his academic training, Madras and his consolidation as a master of line) with his Macanese production. The study identifies, in particular, the persistence of notions of the "Picturesque" — the valorization of the irregular, the decayed, and the quaint — as the interpretive key to Chinnery's gaze upon urban landscapes, buildings, and human types. It concludes that Chinnery's iconographic legacy in Macao constitutes a rare document of the daily life and culture of the period, while simultaneously revealing the transformation of a European aesthetic of travel into a mode of observation deeply rooted in a local context.

Last update from database: 9/14/26, 2:19 AM (UTC)

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