Although the work of Andrew Nicholl is widely known thanks to its distinctive character, examples only occasionally now turn up at auction. So there should be considerable interest in the very typical Nicholl watercolour being sold by Adam's of Dublin next Wednesday with a price guideline of £14,000£16,000.
A Distant View of the City of Derry through a Bank of Poppies conforms to expectations, not least because the foreground is dominated by flowers; poppies, of course (both red and blue, as was Nicholl's wont) but also daisies and what might be cornflowers. Barely visible through the stems, there are glimpses of Derry and the Foyle, together with surrounding countryside, but even the smallest details are rendered with great skill. Nicholl was born in Belfast in 1804, the son of a bootmaker, and seems to have been almost entirely self-taught.
In The Watercolours of Ireland 1600-1914, the Knight of Glin and Professor Anne Crookshank write: "In our opinion, Nicholl must have been aware of the aquatints of William Daniel, whose book A Voyage round Great Britain . . . shows many features which can be seen in Nicholl's early views of the Antrim Coast." Certainly, around 1828 the artist was painting scenes along the coastline, which remained a favourite subject for the rest of his life. In the early 1830s, he spent some time studying in London and returned there again a decade later. However, in 1845 his keenest supporter, Sir James Emerson Tennent, became British Colonial Secretary in Ceylon and found a post for Nicholl as teacher of landscape painting, scientific drawing and design at Colombo Academy. The artist remained there until 1849, when he returned to Europe.
It seems the earliest reference to Nicholl's flower paintings comes from a sonnet written by Emerson Tennent's sister, Eliza, in 1830 on receiving "a beautiful coloured drawing of flowers" from the artist. The record price for a Nicholl was paid in May 1996 at Sotheby's of London, where his Dublin Bay with the Hill of Howth in the Distance made £17,000 sterling. In November 1998, Bank of Poppies, Daisies and other Summer Flowers with Killiney Bay, Bray Head and the Sugarloaf Mountain in the Distance sold for £16,500 at a Dublin auction organised by De Vere's, and last May a similar coastal view with flowers in the foreground made £13,225 sterling at Christie's. The work being sold at Adam's on Wednesday is included in a sale of Irish art which begins at 2.15 p.m.
