A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings: Descriptive of The Manners, Customs and Dresses of the Hindoos

Solvyns, Frans Balthzar

1799. Calcutta. Mirror Press. Folio. 247 (of 250) hand-coloured engraved plates, with engraved title and 12 section headings, each sheet laid down on thick paper, as issued. Contemporary cloth-backed boards, advertisement laid down to front past- edown, plates in section two additionally captioned in ms., some scattered spotting and expert repairs.

First edition, the most impressive book published in Calcutta in the 18^th century, and one of the most important colour-plate books of India, a very fine copy. The author of this monumental work was born in Antwerp in 1760. Solvyns (1760– 1824) arrived India in 1790 to seek his fortune as a professional artist. Noting the popularity of Company School artists, he perceived a market for a plate book devoted to the costume, customs, transport, &c. of India, he set about making the drawings with great vigour. 

 

Solvyns eventually produced 250 in 12 categories: the casts, servants, usual dress of men and women, vehicles, palanquins, faquirs, pleasure boats, boats of lading, modes of smoking, musical instruments, and public festivals with a further untitled section of general views and scenes. 

 

The printing, however, took much longer than he expected as there were no professional engravers in India at this time. As such, Solvyns had to undertake the engraving of each plate himself — the copper for the plates had been used on the bottom of boats — and he didn't complete the first stage of the project, being the publication of this edition, until 1799. Unfortunately for Solvyns, the book was not a great success. Its rather crude engraving and haphazard colouring together with the attendant problems of publishing in what Shaw describes as “the largest, costliest and most ambitious book to have been printed in Calcutta before 1800,” all contributed to its failure. 

 

Indeed it practically ruined Solvyns who escaped bankruptcy only by marry- ing an English heiress. The couple returned to Europe where the artist endeavoured to produce a second edition in Paris. This contained 248 plates and it too was a financial failure, but ironically, pirated editions produced in England by the Ormes using professional engravers proved very successful. Solvyns eventually returned to Belgium, took up a government post and apart from trying to sell his drawings by lottery took no further interest in his life’s work.

Complete copies almost never appear on the market; in fact most copies contain far less plates.

 

OCLC locates copies at Yale, NLM, California State, UNC Chapel Hill, UT Austin, Minnesota, NLW, Oxford, BL, V&A, Wellcome, University of Wales, BnF, and 2 in Denmark.

 

Shaw, G., Printing in Calcutta to 1800,348; Abbey, 421; see also Archer, Mildred “Baltazar Solvyns and the Indian Picturesque.”

1799

P.O.R.