An important original watercolour of Macau. This once formed part of a series of watercolours of the European enclaves on the South China coast in the mid-1840s, described in full in the Hordern House catalogue Edward Ashworth, Artist & Architect (available online at www.hordern.com).

An important original watercolour of Macau. This once formed part of a series of watercolours of the European enclaves on the South China coast in the mid-1840s, described in full in the Hordern House catalogue Edward Ashworth, Artist & Architect (available online at www.hordern.com).

Ashworth, trained in Britain, spent time in Auckland and Sydney before making his way to Hong Kong, spending two years there and in Macau (1844-46). His newly-discovered watercolours of Macau add significantly to the corpus of material explored by previous European painters such as the Daniells, William Alexander, Auguste Borget and George Chinnery. He subsequently returned to England where he practiced until his death in 1896.

The Fortaleza de São Francisco, completed in 1629, was on a Franciscan monastic site, at the northern edge of the Praia Grande, with Bom Parto fort at the southern end, and the São Tiago da Barra battery further down at the southernmost tip close to the A-Ma Temple. The walls were made of a material called chunambo or taipa. Built by African slaves, it was a unique concoction based upon earth, straw, lime and oyster shells that, when pounded together and reinforced with wooden strips, formed a cementitious material more absorbent of projectile bombardment than stone. Fortress building was instinctual to the Portuguese for their overseas possessions. Repeated Dutch attacks at the start of the seventeenth century prompted the authorities to overcome Chinese hostility and rapidly build a chain of fortresses and defensive walls. Most of these fortresses were built adjacent to religious sites such as chapels, churches, convents or monasteries from which their names derived. By the time Ashworth was in the colony the forts had long since become obsolete, their guns silent. But the resilience of their unusual walls remained intact.

Tinged with Romanticism, this is somewhat out of character with Ashworth's other studies. The artist, having possibly seen Chinnery's fine pencil sketch of the fortress drawn in 1825 (Hong Kong Museum of Art, AH84.10 ), chooses a similar view, but with one distinct difference. Unlike Chinnery, where the focus is upon the formidable mass of boulders and rocks, Ashworth has pulled the viewer back onto a surprisingly turbulent seascape. The relatively calm waters within the sweeping embrace of the Praia Grande and the Porto Interior (inner harbour) are just beyond view, though one would not think it from this spot: a sampan with its floating family stray perilously close to the rocks upon which the fortress crouches above. The Fortaleza de São Francisco, not the most imposing of Macau's sea batteries, nevertheless has been artistically amplified in the scene by the threatening water and visually raised up by the promontory of rocks girdling it. Ashworth also neatly encapsulates, through the figures of two distant vessels entering Macau's bay — a Chinese junk and Western clipper — that rare intercourse of early nineteenth-century commerce between two civilisations engaged, almost uniquely, at Macau.

Further analysis can be seen at hordern.com (search 6000013).

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An important original watercolour of Macau. This once formed part of a series of watercolours of the European enclaves on the South China coast in the mid-1840s. The series was described in full in the Hordern House catalogue Edward Ashworth, Artist & Architect (available online at www.hordern.com).

The Fortaleza de São Francisco

Fortress building was instinctual to the Portuguese for their overseas possessions. No self-respecting town in early modern Portugal could be considered so without some castle installation or defensive structure, so it was not surprising that the Portuguese chose to construct the same quite soon after settling in Macau. Repeated Dutch attacks on the enclave at the start of the seventeenth century gave the Portuguese authorities the excuse needed to overcome Chinese hostility and rapidly build a chain of fortresses and defensive walls. This enclosed the higher ground and excluded the lower Chinese town stretching along the north-western flank of the peninsula. Most of these fortresses were built adjacent to religious sites such as chapels, churches, convents or monasteries from which their names derived. From the Chinese imperial authority's point of view it also had the unexpected advantage of keeping the Europeans neatly and visibly contained within their own territory. Completed in 1629, the Fortaleza de São Francisco, a Franciscan monastic site, sat at the northern edge of the Praia Grande, with Bom Parto fort at the southern end, and the São Tiago da Barra battery further down at the southernmost tip close to the A-Ma Temple. The walls were made of a material called chunambo or taipa. Built by African slaves, it was a unique concoction based upon earth, straw, lime and oyster shells that, when pounded together and reinforced with wooden strips, formed a cementitious material more absorbent of projectile bombardment than stone. By the time Ashworth was in the colony the forts had long since become obsolete, their guns silent. But the resilience of their unusual walls remained intact.

Tinged with Romanticism, this is somewhat out of character with Ashworth's other studies. The artist, having possibly seen Chinnery's fine pencil sketch of the fortress drawn in 1825 (**), chooses a very similar view, but with one distinct difference. Unlike Chinnery, where the focus is upon the formidable mass of boulders and rocks, Ashworth has pulled the viewer back onto a surprisingly turbulent seascape. The relatively calm waters within the sweeping embrace of the Praia Grande and the Porto Interior (inner harbour) are just beyond view, though one would not think it from this spot: a sampan with its floating family stray perilously close to the rocks upon which the fortress crouches above. The Fortaleza de São Francisco, not the most imposing of Macau's sea batteries, nevertheless has been artistically amplified in the scene by the threatening water and visually raised up by the promontory of rocks girdling it. Ashworth also neatly encapsulates, through the figures of two distant vessels entering Macau's bay — a Chinese junk and Western clipper — that rare intercourse of early nineteenth-century commerce between two civilisations engaged, almost uniquely, at Macau. Two civilizations found rarely in agreement or in having any understanding of the other.

Edward Ashworth

Edward Ashworth was born near Exeter, Devon in 1814, and trained as an articled apprentice to Robert Cornish, architect to Exeter Cathedral. He then moved to London to work under another Exeter-born man, Charles Fowler, architect to the Duke of Bedford and a founder-member of the Institute of British Architects.

Unhappy with the quality of his commissions, Ashworth decided to immigrate to New Zealand. Aged 28, he left England in May 1842 aboard the ship Tuscan, bound for Auckland. The trip included a brief stay in Melbourne, landing at Port Phillip in September 1842. Ashworth continued on to Auckland, arriving a month later in October. After failing to find work as an architect he accepted a position as tutor to the children of the first New Zealand Governor, William Hobson, recently deceased. Other tutoring posts soon came his way. During his two-year stay, Ashworth made numerous watercolours of Auckland and its street life including an expedition into the Waikato, now treasured views of the very first stages of colonial occupation. This was to become a habit, drawing and painting the landscapes and streetscapes of each place he visited. In 1843 he gave a lecture to the local Mechanics Institute on Greek architecture in which his drawings were widely admired for their 'exquisite' quality.

By early 1844 he had decided to make his way back to England via a slow sojourn in China — presumably he had heard of the sudden flurry of building construction then underway in Hong Kong. Ashworth left Auckland in February 1844 arriving for the second time in Australia that same month, this time in Sydney, New South Wales. He spent three months in that city, again painting and drawing, before heading across to Hong Kong aboard the American ship Navigator by way of Batavia (Jakarta) and Macau. The timing was impeccable. The first 'official' land auction of Hong Kong under Crown sovereignty had taken place just a few months earlier, in January 1844, and a building boom ensued. Now, finally, he could find actual architectural commissions and build.

Ashworth returned to England in 1846 and set up practice in Exeter. His first job in the county was as clerk of works for Up Ottery Manor, a new, suitably expansive neo-Tudor pile, which he completed for the 2nd Viscount Sidmouth in 1847. Here, in bucolic Devon, he remained until his death in 1896, devoting much of his work to the restoration of parish churches.

Ashworth's newly-discovered watercolours of Macau add significantly to the corpus of material explored by previous European painters such as the Daniells, William Alexander, Auguste Borget and George Chinnery, although with a greater urbanity and intimacy to the settings, partly as a result of his close interest in detail, particularly architectural.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Chris Cowell who prepared a skilful analysis of the Ashworth drawings; for information summarised here we also thank Marian Minson and the staff of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand; Cesar Guillen Nuñez, Historian of Art at the Macau Ricci Institute, Macau; Dr. Stuart Braga, Sydney; Sarah Cunich, Hong Kong; the staff of the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, and the National Library of Australia, Canberra.

Bibliography: Ashworth

Ashworth, E. 'Chinese Architecture.' In Detached Essays and Illustrations Issued During the Years 1850- 51. London: Architectural Publication Society, 21 February 1853. (Essay first published in 1851); Cates, Arthur. 'The Dictionary of Architecture. A Retrospect. 1848-1892.' In Dictionary of Architecture, edited by Wyatt Papworth, 1-3. London: Architectural Publication Society, 1892; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscript Collection, State Library of New South Wales: Edward Ashworth – Records (1842-1844), Microfilm of journal, notebooks and sketchbooks of travels in Australia, New Zealand and China 1842-44 [1 reel, FM 4/3403]; National Library of Australia, Papers [M602] microform: Ashworth, Edward, 1814-1896; Platts, Una. Nineteenth Century New Zealand Artists: A Guide & Handbook. Christchurch: Avon Fine Prints, 1980; National Library of New Zealand, Ref: MSGroup-1954, Edward Ashworth Journals (1841-45) & Ref: E-042, Edward Ashworth Sketchbook (1844).

Bibliography: Macau

Cremer, R.D., ed. Macau: City of Commerce and Culture. Hong Kong: UEA Press, 1987; Guillén-Nuñez, César. Macao Streets. Hong Kong; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; Orange, James. The Chater Collection: Pictures Relating to China, Hong Kong, Macao, 1655-1860. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1924; Porter, Jonathan. Macau, the Imaginary City: Culture and Society, 1557 to the Present. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996; Shipp, Steve. Macau, China: A Political History of the Portuguese Colony's Transition to Chinese Rule. Jefferson, N. Carolina; London: McFarland & Co. Inc., 1997.

(**) George Chinnery, 'St. Francis Fort,' 1825, Hong Kong Museum of Art, AH84.10 (reproduced in Gerard Tsang et al, Views of the Pearl River Delta: Macau, Canton and Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1996), 87, plate 18.