Emily Eden, Portraits of the Princes and People of India, with 28 hand-coloured lithographed plates J. Dickinson & Son, London, 1844


28 hand-coloured lithographs mounted on 24 sheets of card (four cards with two lithographs each), by Lowes Dickinson after Eden, printed captions to each plate mounted on the reverse of the card, hand-coloured lithographed title page (illustrating the son of the Nawab of Banda), loose, unbound in an original morocco-backed portfolio, upper cover blocked in gilt Hon. E. Eden's/India, with a vignette illustration of a snake coiled around an egg card 560 x 445 mm.; portfolio 565 x 470 mm.
|A RARE HAND-COLOURED complete set of the well-known illustrations, the most famous being those of the Sikh rulers of the Punjab, but also those which normally have less attention drawn to them: servants of the King of Oudh, fakirs and Tibetans. Best known are the intimate portrait of Ranjit Singh, seated in a European chair with one foot tucked underneath him; the powerful, solid figure of Maharaja Sher Singh; and the swaggering, rather dandyish portrayal of Hira Singh - all of which capture something of each man's character, as reported by Eden and others. Emily Eden (1797-1869) accompanied her brother, Lord Auckland, to India in 1836 when he was Governor-General. They stayed in Calcutta at first, but then between October 1837 and February 1840 toured through Oudh and the hill regions. They visited (along with their sister, Fanny) the court of Ranjit Singh in 1838 at what was perhaps its high point, though it was soon to fall into internecine and murderous faction fighting. Eden recorded her impression both in writing, in an extensive collection of letters, and in sketches, which on her return to England in 1842 she worked up and then had printed privately as a set of 24 lithographs. The Portraits was published in 1844 in four parts in wrappers. Most were in monochrome except for a few beautifully hand-coloured copies, of which the present lot is one. Her written accounts were also published as Up the Country: Letters written to her sister from the Upper Provinces of India by the Hon. Emily Eden, 1866.The list of plates is as follows (using contemporary spelling in some cases):The son of the Nawab of Banda (frontispiece).Dost Muhammad Khan, ruler of Afghanistan, and family.Maharajah Sher Singh, 'the present sovereign of the Sikhs'.Hindoo Fakeer.Two Jemadars, Calcutta (two plates on one card).Akalees, 'being very wild in appearance, and turbulent characters'.The Rajah of Patiala.Rajah Heera Singh.Rajah Hindoo Rao.A Patiala horseman.A young hill Rajah, from the area around Simla.Falconers, servants of the King of Oudh.Servants of Raja Khurruk Singh.The late Maharajah Ranjit Singh, 'in his usual attitude and dress'.The horse and groom, and the jewels of Ranjit Singh, including the Koh-i-Noor (two plates on one card).Hunting leopards of the King of Oudh with attendants.Arab servants of Sir Alexander Burnes.A fakeer at an encampment.A Hindoo student at Calcutta and a girl, the daughter of a servant (two plates on one card).Purtab Singh, a Sikh prince, murdered at Lahore.A Shootr-Suwar, a camel despatch rider.The Rajah of Nahun and sons; Anund Musseeh, a convert to Christianity (two plates on one card).Tibetan tartars, traders, sketched at Simla.A Zemindar and a Pathan.Lord Auckland receiving the Rajah of Nahun in Durbar.