View near Point de Galle, Ceylon

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Government Art Collection

This aquatint landscape is from a series of prints titled ‘Twenty Four Views of St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, The Red Sea, Abyssinia’, published in 1809 and dedicated to Richard Wellesley, Marquess Wellesley (1760-1842), the elder brother of the first Duke of Wellington, who became Governor-General of Bengal. The illustrations show places visited by traveller and collector of antiquities Henry Salt during his travels with Viscount Valentia (later the Earl of Mountnorris). Each of the detailed illustrations includes figures in the foreground. The series of prints were met with some acclaim when published in 1809.

This aquatint was Plate 8 of Henry Salt's ‘Twenty Four Views...’ It shows Point de Galle in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), which was second only to Trincomalee, on the east coast, as Sri Lanka’s most significant harbour. The text which accompanies the image explains that Salt's view was taken:

‘…at the spot where ended a canal... constructed by the Dutch, for the purpose of bringing down from the forests of the interior those beautiful woods, which form the chief ornament of the cabinet-work of Europe.’

Henry Salt was born and educated in Lichfield, Staffordshire. He studied under watercolourist John Glover, before moving to London in 1797 and becoming a pupil of landscape painter Joseph Farington and portraitist John Hoppner. In 1802 he made an Eastern tour of India and Ceylon as secretary and draughtsman to British peer and politician George Annesley, Viscount Valentia. They returned via Ethiopia and Egypt, arriving back in England in 1806. In 1809 Salt was sent to Abyssinia on a mission to deliver gifts and report back to the British government. He returned in 1811. Four years later he was appointed Consul General in Egypt and while there devoted himself to the study and excavation of antiquities. He died near Alexandria, aged just 47.
Daniell Havell was an aquatint engraver of topographical views, military and genre subjects after his contemporaries. He was born in Berkshire, the son of painter Thomas Havell and may also have been the nephew of the engraver Robert Havell senior (1769-1832), with whom he collaborated on a number of plates.

Places

Sri Lanka, Galle

Subjects

topography, landscape C19th, tree, palm, cow, river, man, woman, road, house

Materials & Techniques

aquatint, coloured aquatint

Artist

Henry Salt (1780 - 1827)
Daniell Havell (1785 - 1826)

Title

View near Point de Galle, Ceylon

Portfolio Title

Twenty-four Views taken in St. Helena, the Cape, India, Ceylon, The Red Sea, Abyssinia & Egypt

Date

published 1 May 1809

Medium

Coloured aquatint

Acquisition

Purchased from Francis Edwards, June 1954

GAC number

2744