North India: Including the Presidency Bengal [Set of 2]
North India and the Bengal Presidency — A Matched Pair of Rapkin–Tallis Imperial Maps with Military and Administrative Registers
a) John Rapkin after John Tallis
North India: Including the Presidency Bengal
Steel engraving's with original hand-coloured outlines
Circa 1858-59
Sheet sizes: approx. 10.83 x 14.17 in (27.5 x 36 cm)
Plate sizes: approx. 9.84 x 12.60 in (25 x 32 cm)
Folded: 10.83 x 7.09 in (27.5 x 18 cm)
This finely engraved mid-nineteenth-century map of Northern India, executed in steel engraving and framed by an elaborate Victorian ornamental border, functions not only as a geographic survey but as a curated monument to British imperial conquest and governance. The map delineates the political divisions of the Bengal Presidency, Punjab, Oudh, the North-West Frontier, and adjoining Himalayan territories at a moment when British territorial expansion had reached its most confident pre-1857 extent.
A printed register titled A List of 24 Principal Victories in India, from 1751 to 1849 presents a chronological record of major British military successes, arranged in a structured sequence that identifies each engagement by place, followed by its date and the commanding officer responsible for the victory.
1. Arcot (Nov. 14, 1751)—Capt. Clive
2. Plassey (June 23, 1757)—Lt.-Col. Clive
3. Patna (Jan. 15, 1761)—Major Carnac
4. Buxar (Oct. 23, 1764)—Major Munro
5. Sedaseer (Mar. 6, 1799)—General Harris
6. Seringapatam (May 4, 1799)—General Harris
7. Delhi (Sept. 11, 1803)—General Lake
8. Assaye (Sept. 23, 1803)—General Wellesley
9. Deeg (Nov. 13, 1804)—Lt.-Gen. Fraser
10. Kirkee (Nov. 5, 1817)— Brig.-Gen. Doveton
11. Asseerghur (Apr. 9, 1819)— Lord Combermere
12. Bhurtpoor (Jan. 18, 1825)— Lord Combermere
13. Ghuznee (Jan. 23, 1839)— Sir John Keane
14. Khelat (Nov. 13, 1839)— Major-General Wiltshire
15. Jellalabad (Apr. 7, 1842)— Sir Robert Sale;
16. Tezeen (Sept. 13, 1842)—General Pollock
17. Meanee (Feb. 17, 1843)—Sir Charles Napier
18. Maharajpoor (Dec. 29, 1843)—Sir Hugh Gough
19. Moodkee (Dec. 18, 1845)—Lord Gough
20. Aliwal (Jan. 28, 1845)—Sir Harry Smith
21. Sobraon (Feb. 10, 1846)— Lord Gough
22. Mooltan (Jan. 2, 1849)— General Wish
23. Chillianwallah (Jan. 13, 1849)—Lord Gough
24. Goojerat (Feb. 21, 1849)—Lord Gough.
The list functions as a concise historical ledger, systematically pairing geographical location with temporal context and military leadership, thereby transforming a series of battles into an ordered narrative of imperial expansion and martial achievement across the Indian subcontinent during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
A companion table, List of Governors-General of India, from 1773 to 1855, records the administrative succession in full: Warren Hastings (from 1773 to 1785); Earl Cornwallis (1786—1793); Sir John Shore (1793—1798); Lord Mornington (Marquis Wellesley) (1798—1805); Earl Cornwallis (2nd Administration) (1805—1805); Earl Minto (1806—1813); Lord Moira (Marquis of Hastings) (1813—1823); Lord Amherst (1823—1828); Lord William Bentinck (1828—1835); Lord Auckland (1836—1842); Lord Ellenborough (1842—1844); Sir Henry (Lord) Hardinge (1844—1848); Earl of Dalhousie (1848—1855); Viscount (Earl) Canning (1855—[as printed]).
Large decorative British India maps combining such dense political, military, and administrative historiography remain scarce, visually commanding, and highly sought after within collections of colonial cartography and imperial print culture. The fusion of mapping, military commemoration, and bureaucratic record exemplifies Victorian Britain’s conviction that cartography served both as an instrument of rule and as a ceremonial archive of empire.
b) John Rapkin after John Tallis
North India: Including the Presidency Bengal
Steel engraving's with original hand-coloured outlines
Circa 1850s
Sheet sizes: approx. 27.5 x 36 cm
Plate sizes: approx. 24.5 x 33 cm
Folded: 27 x 18.5 cm
A highly decorative hand-coloured and detailed mid-19th-century map of Northern India, which was drawn and engraved by J Rapkin (vignettes by A H Wray & J H Kernot) and published in John Tallis's Illustrated Atlas (London & New York: John Tallis & Co., circa 1850s).
The Illustrated Atlas, published from 1849 to 1853, was the last decorative world atlas. The Northern India map was typical of the many fine ones that appeared in this work with its decorative border and attractive vignettes. Illustrated are views of the British Residency in Hyderabad, the ruins of Old Delhi, a “Car of Juggernaut (LOrd Jagganath)”, a tiger hunt, and “Hindoos” (an Indian man and woman).
This matched pair of mid-nineteenth-century steel-engraved maps of North India and the Bengal Presidency, by John Rapkin after John Tallis, exemplifies the final flowering of Victorian decorative cartography in the service of empire. Issued on the eve of the Indian Uprising of 1857, the maps combine precise political geography—encompassing Bengal, Punjab, Oudh and the North-West Frontier—with an unusually dense overlay of historical, military and administrative information. Extensive registers of British victories and governors-general transform one sheet into a ceremonial ledger of conquest, while the companion map’s ornate borders and narrative vignettes articulate a visual rhetoric of imperial authority.
(Set of two)
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