A watercolour view of a lake in Sri Lanka with mountains in the distance; elephants in the lake. Signed: 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.

The Court Circular printed in The Illustrated London News on 26 March 1870 records that Nicholl showed the Queen a series of twelve watercolours of the 'scenery and antiquities of Ceylon', from which this work was probably chosen. Queen Victoria had already acquired two other views of Sri Lanka by Nicholl in 1850 (see also RCINs 921948 and 921949).