George Chinnery (1774-1852)
Portraits of Captain James and Mrs Katherine Ann Neish, seated small three-quarter lengths, in an interior
oil on canvas
James: 11⁷⁄₈ x 10¹⁄₄in. (30.1 x 26cm.)
Catherine: 11⁷⁄₈ x 10³⁄₁₆in. (30.1 x 25.9cm.)
in the original carved and gilt wood frames

The son of a Dundee merchant and a Country ship captain in the employ of Jardine, Matheson and the Bombay Parsee merchant Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy in the 1820s, Captain James Neish (1787-1867) brought the first jute from India to Dundee on his ship the Fort William which he commanded from 1827. The cargo was delivered to his brother James Neish's mill in Dundee, and kicked off one of the Tayside city's key industries in the early 1830s. He commissioned the architect George Mathewson to build him a summer house on the Tay at Broughty Ferry in 1835. He named the house for his ship Fort William House, and it survives today as the Royal Tay Yacht Club. Katherine gave birth to their third child, a son, on board the Fort William, at Macao in 1830.

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By descent from the sitters to their great-granddaughter Mrs Westmacott, 5 Victoria Terrace, Calcutta (according to labels and inscriptions on the backing paper of the female portrait).

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