Types of the Bengal Army

1890

Chromolithograph on paper

Print size: 14.25 x 17.5 in (36 x 44.5 cm)
Sheet size: 15 x 22.75 in (38 x 57.5 cm)

A superb costume plate of fifteen different ranks identified with descriptive text in the bottom margins. below.

13th (DUKE OF CONNAUGHT’S) BENGAL LANCERS. Daffadar (Sergent) Marching Order/ 19th (FANE’S HORSE) BENGAL LANCERS. Sowar (Trooper) Marching Order/ 1st PUNJAUB INFANTRY (Coke’s Rifles) NATIVE OFFICER Full Dress/ 4th (HAZARA) MOUNTAIN BATTERY. Gunner. Field Service Dress

QUEENS OWN CORPS OF GUIDES (Infantry) Native Officer full dress / 4th GOORKHA REGIMENT · Sepoy. Marching Order/ QUEENS OWN CORPS OF GUIDES (Cavalry) Native Officer Field Service Dress / 45TH RATTRAYS SIKHS. Sepoy Full Dress/ 3rd BENGAL CAVALRY. Sowar. Field Service Dress/ 1st PUNJAB CAVALRY. Sowar. Full Dress/ 1st SIKH INFANTRY. Piper. Full Dress/ H.E.THE VICEROY’S BODY GUARD. Sowar. Full Dress/ 18th BENGAL INFANTRY. Native Officer. Full Dress/ 15th MOOLTANEE CAVALRY. Sowar. Full Dress/ 1st BENGAL CAVALRY. Sowar. Full Dress

It is a great full-color chromolithograph, showing the uniforms of the Bengal Army in British India. The Bengal Army, which included some of the most famous military units in India, was the army of the "Presidency of Bengal," one of three such entities that the British East India Company had in South Asia. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857 (almost entirely confined to the Bengal Army), the British Crown took over direct control of all three presidencies and their armies.

Alfred Crowdy Lovett (1862-1919), the son of James C and Ellen H Lovett. was a military artist best known for his watercolours and other images of the varied uniforms of the different armies of British India. When this lithograph was published, he was shown with the rank of Lieutenant, but as his work continued over the next several decades, this designation would change, right up to Colonel and then Brigadier General. This image certainly captures the spirit and colour of the Indian Army at the height of the Empire. This early full-colour chromolithograph was made during an era when images in the illustrated journals were strictly black-and-white wood engravings. Then, just a few years before this image was made, several British journals began to distribute full-colour lithographs in one or two issues a year (work on these had to be begun months in advance, and very often their production had to be contracted out to one of the few firms capable of producing the quality of coloured images needed). This chromolithograph was distributed as a Supplement of The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, 8 March 1890.

This work will be shipped unframed

NON-EXPORTABLE