[9] Nicholl (1804–1886) was a distinguished Irish water colourist, who travelled to Ceylon in 1846, where his Belfast patron, Sir James Emerson Tennent, had been appointed as the Colonial Secretary.
His deft sketches, reminiscent of the English social caricaturist, Thomas Rowlandson,[11] enabled him to create a vivid "on the spot" recording of contemporary life in Ceylon.
As he sat in a railway carriage[12] he would with a few swift lines and smudges unerringly record what he saw and what specially attracted his eye, catching the passing incident or scene.
Rural life and ritual sports, palanquins and bullock carts, a rickshaw wallah or horse drawn carriage — were featured in many of his sketches.
[18] Between the 30 March and 8 May 1870 Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, visited Ceylon, the first time that a member of the British monarchy had travelled to the country.
[4] In the late 1870s a large number of villagers in Sri Lanka were suffering from "parangi", which led to Dr William Kynsey, the Chief Medical Officer in Ceylon, embarking on a programme of research into the disease.
[13][14][22] Van Dort married Cornelia Henrietta née Spittel (27 September 1838 – 1 November 1915) on 30 January 1861 at Wolvendaal Church in Colombo.
[33] His watercolours of 19th-century Sri Lanka can be found at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (Dutch: Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde) in Leiden.