Figures by a Tomb in Bengal

George Chinnery achieved success as a commissioned portraitist in India and China in the first half of the nineteenth century, but it is his landscapes of the East, which he painted for his own pleasure, that push his reputation ever higher in contemporary times. This late summer landscape of Bengal countryside in shades of ochre and green captures the stillness of the season through a calm land and a calmer sky. The tomb as well as the two figures—almost still—blend perfectly with the tranquility of the picture.