A watercolour depicting a distant view of the city formerly known as Pont de Galle (now Galle) at the south-west point of Sri Lanka. Signed: A Nicholl A.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.

A watercolour of this subject was exhibited by Nicholl at the Royal Academy in 1849 (no. 800). Queen Victoria acquired three views of Sri Lanka by him (see also RCINs 921948 and 451106).