A watercolour showing a coast scene with basalt rocks. Signed at bottom left: A Nicholl R.H.A.

Andrew Nicholl was a landscape painter and illustrator from Belfast who was appointed to teach landscape, scientific drawing and design at Colombo Academy in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) by the British Government in 1846. He was responsible for the illustrations which were reproduced as prints in Ceylon: an Account of the Island, physical, historical and topographical (1859) by Sir James Emmerson Tennent, civil secretary to the colonial government of Ceylon 1845-50. Queen Victoria acquired three views of Ceylon by him (see RCINs 921948, 921949 and 451106), as well as two Scottish subjects (including this one).