[1] After being encouraged to pursue his artistic talent, Trindade enrolled at the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art in Bombay, a prestigious institution dedicated to the teaching of painting, sculpture and design, which followed the traditions of European naturalism as expressed by the South Kensington system.

[2] The work of António Xavier Trindade skilfully interweaves the cultural universes of the Indian Subcontinent and Western Europe, ensuring the painter great acclaim and the highest honours an artist could aspire to at that time.

In 2007, the same exhibition was presented at Fine Arts Society, Lisbon, the Soares dos Reis Museum, Porto and one year later at Ponta Delgada Cultural Centre, Azores, Portugal.

Trindade’s mastery of portrait can be illustrated by some of early works such as Self-portrait in Green (1912) or in other domestic scenes like Dolce Far Niente (1920), featuring his wife or Esther Reclining (n.d.), portraying one of his daughters.

The depth of Trindade’s perception and skill in composition have been proven a constant in his paintings, earning the artist the epithet of “Rembrandt of the East”,[11] even though the eloquence of his colour and light-dark techniques are perhaps more reminiscent of the Spanish masters Velásquez or Goya.

[12] Examples of this are depictions of simple folk such as The Armenian Sisters (1932), traditional characters as in Forsaken (n.d.), and scenes portraying daily life and rituals such as Sanyasi (n.d.) and Preparing for Puja (1923).

AXT’s mastery of watercolour and drawing can also be found in the group of four paintings that comprise the Nasik Scenes (1931) and among newly restored works such as Woman in Pink Sari (n.d.) or Head of a Bald Man (1914).