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MAJOR JOHN LUARD, Views in India, Saint Helena, and Car Nicobar, Drawn from Nature and on Stone by Major John Luard, London: J. Graf, printer to Her Majesty, circa 1832-38

244 pages including 1 hand-coloured lithograph frontispiece; 1 hand-coloured lithographed title page; 59 hand-coloured lithograph plates and having a descriptive text for each plate
Half leather-bound with leather corners and new marbled boards with gilt text at the spine with 5 raised bands
36.6 x 27 x 3.5 cm

A distinguished military officer, John Luard served both as a Lieutenant at Waterloo and as a Captain at Bhurtpore in 1825. Author of History of the Dress of the British Soldier, Luard was considered one of the most talented of the many amateur artists who depicted India. (India Observed: India as Viewed by British Artists, London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 1982, pp. 142-43)

The present lot is a leather-bound book with several hand-coloured lithograph plates illustrating views of the Taj Mahal, the city of Delhi during the British Raj and Indian culture and people. For this volume, Luard etched the illustrations on stone himself as the cost of line engraving was expensive at the time. As the book was composed over a long period of time, its plates were printed by multiple publishers, including C Hullmandel, Maguire, Lemercier & Co., Maguire & Co., and Graf & Soret, and is rarely found as a complete set.