Hindostan or British India [Set of 2]

a) Alvin Jewett Johnson
Hindostan or British India
1861
Steel engraving on paper
Print size: 12.60 x 16.34 in (32 x 41.5 cm)
Sheet size: 14.57 x 18.11 in (37 x 46 cm)
Published by A J Johnson

b) Johnson and Ward
Hindostan or British India
1864
Steel engraving on paper
Print size: 12.60 x 16.14 in (32 x 41 cm)
Sheet size: 13.98 x 18.11 in (35.5 x 46 cm)
Published by Johnson & Ward

A rare paired offering of Johnson’s influential mid-nineteenth-century maps of British India—two distinct editions (1861 and 1864) that chart, in evolving form, the consolidation of colonial administration from Sind and Punjab to Bengal and the Deccan

This combined lot presents two significant editions of one of the most recognisable American-produced maps of British India. Johnson’s Hindostan, or British India, appeared at a moment when international appetite for visualising the expanding British Empire was rising sharply, particularly among American readers fascinated by the political geography of Asia and the fortunes of the Raj in the aftermath of the Rebellion of 1857.

The 1861 edition, issued by A. J. Johnson, reflects India in the immediate post-annexation climate: Oudh appears formally absorbed into British territories; the North-West Frontier is still shown in the aftermath of the Punjab campaigns; and the princely states of Rajputana, Central India and Hyderabad retain the fragmented, semi-autonomous boundaries that typify the pre-Crown period. It is framed within Johnson’s characteristic decorative atlas surround of the early 1860s, part of a sequence of evolving border styles—most notably the bold “strapwork” pattern employed circa 1860–63.

The 1864 Johnson & Ward edition, published after the Crown had assumed governance in 1858, incorporates updated administrative boundaries and a subtly revised hierarchy of provinces, divisions and commissionerates. The mapping of the Bengal Presidency, the North-Western Provinces, Sind, and parts of the Central Provinces is noticeably more systematised, signalling an editorial response to the new imperial administrative order. The sheet belongs to the subsequent decorative phase of Johnson’s atlas production, in which the strapwork surround gives way to the more intricate “fretwork” border style used from circa 1863 through the later 1860s (before the introduction of the distinctive spirograph borders of 1870). These ornamental typologies provide collectors with a useful visual index for dating and edition identification.

Both maps include three inset plans focusing on the Island of Bombay (Mumbai), Madras and Calcutta, while a vignette of the Government House and Treasury in Calcutta adorns the upper left. Together they exemplify the American decorative atlas tradition—crisp steel engraving, expressive typography, and ornamental framing—yet remain grounded in British and Survey of India intelligence.

Notably, both sheets are printed with a highly evocative verso text: a Chronological History of the Great Rebellion, outlining key events of the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58. This printed chronology underscores the extent to which such atlas maps were not merely geographic tools but vehicles of imperial narrative, embedding the territorial image of British India within the historical memory of rebellion, suppression, and the transition from Company rule to Crown.

For collectors, paired editions such as these demonstrate in immediate comparative form the shifting boundaries and nomenclatures that accompanied the mid-nineteenth-century restructuring of the subcontinent. Within the auction’s broader narrative on Northern India, these maps occupy a crucial place: they visualise the period of administrative recalibration that bridged two regimes—the East India Company and the British Crown—and record how India’s provincial organisation was consumed, reinterpreted, and re-exported by American map publishers working far from the subcontinent yet deeply invested in its geopolitical story.

(Set of two)

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This lot will be shipped in "as is" condition. For further details, please refer to the images of individual lots as reference for the condition of each lot.