Deluxe issue with plates hand-coloured. The deluxe issue of Hardinge's rare colour plate book on India. Includes important Sikh portraits of the Maharajah Dulip Singh, Rajah Lal Sing, Gulab Sing, and Sheik Imam-ud-Din Runjur Sing.

Charles Stewart was the eldest son of the first Viscount Hardinge, Governor-General of India from 1844 to 1848, and his father's secretary throughout that time. His drawings were made mostly during their official visits to various places, including Delhi and Lahore. In 1845 when the first Sikh war broke out, Charles and his father had already left Calcutta for the north. After Henry negotiated a treaty with the Sikhs at Lahore in early 1846, Charles went to Jammu and Kashmir before rejoining his father in Simla. The first part of the book contains lithographs of the Red Fort and the Jami Masjid at Agra. His scene of Delhi portrays the Red Fort and distant minarets of the Zinat-ul-Masjid along the Jumna. Several views in or near Lahore after Hardinge include the tomb at Shahdara of Emperor Jahangir, who spent much of his life in this capital. The lithographer responsible for transferring Hardinge's sketches was yet another relative, James Duffield Harding.

First edition; folio (58 x 47 cm. approx.), deluxe issue with plates hand-coloured and mounted on card in a portfolio, 2 title-pages, dedication, preface, and text bound in linen-backed wrappers as issued, 26 fine hand-coloured lithographed plates heightened with varnish, each mounted on card, occasional light foxing, original morocco-backed green cloth portfolio, large morocco lettering label to upper cover, blue ties, short tear to head of spine, a very good copy.

Abbey (Travel), 472; Bobins 252; Tooley 244.