River of Smoke - Amitav Ghosh [197]
‘Very well then, Mr Chinnery,’ said Mr Chan. ‘I am leaving Canton tomorrow and will be away for four weeks. I would be most grateful if you could have the copy ready for me when I return. I will pay you a hundred silver dollars.’
This quite took my breath away – for the sum is not much less than my Uncle himself might expect for a painting – but you will be glad to know that I was not so nonplussed as to be unmindful of the matter that had brought me there. ‘And what of Mr Penrose’s pictures, sir?’ said I. ‘And the golden camellia?’
‘Oh yes,’ said he, in the most casual way. ‘I will look at the pictures while I am away. We will talk about it again when I see you next, in four weeks.’
And that, my dear Puggly-devi, was the end of it.
I went straight back to my room and stretched a canvas upon a frame. But on making a start, I realized that the task would not be as easy as I had thought. Conjuring up that exquisite face was like raising a ghost from the dead: I began to feel haunted by her presence. For it was here that Adelina died, you know, in Canton, in the very river I can see from my window – almost within sight of the studio founded by her grandfather (it still stands, on Old China Street). This is the other thing I share with Adelina – she too was born of a line of artists. Her grandfather was indeed one of the greatest figures of the Canton School – his name was Chitqua and he was, in all things, a pioneer. While still in his thirties – in 1770 I think it was – he travelled to London, where an exhibition of his work was mounted at the Royal Academy. It created a great sensation and he was feted everywhere he went: Zoffany painted him and he was invited to dine with the King and Queen. Not since Van Dyck had a foreign painter been accorded such a reception in London – and yet, despite his great success, Chitqua’s life came to an inglorious end. On his return to Canton he fell in love with a young woman of humble origin – a boat-woman some say, while others allege her to have been a ‘flower-girl’.
Chitqua was already the father of a substantial brood of children, begotten through many wives and concubines. Against the bitter opposition of his kin, far and near, he insisted on taking his newly found beloved under his protection. She bore him a son, and on this boy, as on his mother, he lavished his love as he never had on anyone before. This engendered, as you may imagine, many jealousies and also many apprehensions in regard to the disposal of the family property. Whether or not these fears had anything to do with Chitqua’s death is not known but suffice it to say that when he suddenly ceased to breathe, after a banquet, there were many who whispered that the painter had been poisoned. The outcome in any event was that his young mistress and her son were left destitute, alone in the world except for a single servant.
The son had received some instruction in painting from his father and had the circumstances of his birth been different he would, no doubt, have been absorbed into one of Canton’s many studios. But the artists of the city are a tight-knit lot, closely connected by blood, and they would not accept the boy into their midst. The lad kept himself alive by doing odd-jobs in Fanqui-town, working as an illustrator for botanists and collectors. The story goes that it was thus that his talent came to the notice of a wealthy American – a merchant who took him to Macau and helped him set up a studio of his own. It was there too that the lad adopted the name by which he would come to be known – Alantsae.
As is often the case with offspring who are born, so to speak, on the wrong side of the blanket, Alantsae proved to be more fully his father’s heir than any of Chitqua’s other sons. He quickly became the most celebrated portraitist in Macau and was much sought after by foreigners – merchants, sea-captains, and of course, the city