BATTLE OF FEROZSHAH INDIA 1848 ACKERMANN UNUSUAL ANTIQUE AQUATINT BATTLE VIEW

Night Bivouac of the British Army at Ferozshah on the 21st December 1845.

Description: Striking and highly detailed fine unusual 1848 original colored etching with aquatint showing exhausted British East India Company troops sleeping in rows and scattered about the foreground of a battlefield: with Governor-General Lord Henry Hardinge and General Sir Hugh Gough with several officers, mounted and on foot, in the middle ground; with fires burning in the distance. Lettered below. Representing the night following the first day of battle at Ferozeshah, in the Punjab (north west India) between the British and the Sikh Kalsa army, during the First Anglo-Sikh War of 1845-6.
 
The Maharaja Ranjit Singh had held sway over the Sikh Empire of the Punjab, in north west India, since 1799. He had upheld cordial relations with the East India Company, who held territories adjoining the Punjab, while maintaining the fearsome professionally trained Khalsa army of around 60,000 men. When he died in 1839, no statesman or military figure emerged to take his place and the Sikh empire became increasingly disordered. In September 1845 Sir Henry Hardinge, Governor-General of the Bengal Presidency, received reports that the Khalsa were preparing to invade British territory. He despatched 5,000 extra troops to the region south of the Sutlej river, the border between the Sikh and British territories. It was believed that the future of British India depended on the defeat of Raja Lal Singh's Khalsa army, the equal of the British in training, discipline and weaponry. 
 
On 18 December 1845 the advance guard of Raja Lal Singh's Khalsa army had been defeated at the Battle of Mudki (see RCIN 750916). The Khalsa retreated and regrouped at Ferozeshah where they were sighted on 21 December by the British, commanded by General Sir Hugh Gough. An artillery duel ensued, with the heavier Sikh guns inflicting many casualties. Gough stuck to his habitual tactic in ordering persistent offensives, repeatedly storming the Ferozeshah defences at the cost of casualties unprecedented in any previous Indian campaign. As evening fell Sir Harry Smith's British batallions launched a renewed attack, penetrating the Sikh encampment, before being driven back by counter-attacks. The survivors of the offensive spent the bitterly cold night in the open, as shown in this etching. By dawn it became apparent that the British actually held most of the camp, and by noon Raja Lal Singh's army had been driven from the field. The Sikh General Tej Singh might have routed the depleted British force with a Khalsa counter-attack, but inexplicably, he retired and Gough's army could claim a costly British victory. For a print showing the second day of battle, see RCIN 750918.
 
This etching was produced after a painting by Henry Martens, which was in turn based upon drawings by Major George Francis White. White served in India between 1825 and 1846, with the 31st Regiment of Foot. He was an amateur artist as well as author and illustrator of 'Views in India Chiefly among the Himalyas', 1886-7.
 
The coloured engraving has been engraved by John Harris after H. Martens, published by Rudolph Ackermann, based on a sketch by Major G. F. White, 31st Regiment, from the series Celebrated Engagements of the British Army during the Sikh Wars, text below giving title, dedication to Major General Sir Harry Smith.
 
This engraving depicts the scene in the British camp after the first day of fighting during the Battle of Ferozeshah in December 1845. This was the second desperate encounter of the First Anglo-Sikh War (1845-46). In some of the fiercest fighting the British had ever experienced in India, the Sikhs had come within hours of defeating the British forces earlier in the day. The publisher's caption to the engraving quotes from a letter written by Lord Hardinge, the Governor-General, who is clearly identifiable in the scene owing to his having lost his left hand two days before the Battle of Waterloo:
 
H. M.'s 9th, 29th, 31st & 80th H. C's Eurn. Lt. Infy. and other Corps awaiting the morning to renew the Combat, Lords Hardinge & Gough and Staff in the foreground. 'The Night of the 21st', says the Governor General, 'was the most Extraordinary of my life. I Bivouaced with the men, without food or covering, and our nights are bitter cold. A burning Camp in our front, our brave fellows lying down under a heavy Cannonade, which continued during the whole night, mixed with the wild cries of the Seikhs, our English hurrah, the tramp of men and the groans of the dying...in this state, with a handful of men who had carried the batteries the night before, I remained till morning'.
 
The treachery of the Sikh generals and courtiers, who withheld reinforcements and supplies from their troops, helped to turn an almost certain British defeat into victory, though at a great cost - they suffered losses similar to those experienced at Waterloo.
 
The Battle of Ferozeshah was fought on 21 December and 22 December 1845 between the British East India Company and the Sikh Empire, at the village of Ferozeshah in Punjab. The British were led by Sir Hugh Gough and Governor-General Sir Henry Hardinge, while the Sikhs were led by Lal Singh. The British emerged victorious.
 
The first Anglo-Sikh war was fought between the Sikh Empire and the British East India Company in 1845 and 1846 around the Ferozepur district of Punjab. It resulted in defeat and partial subjugation of the Sikh empire and cession of Jammu & Kashmir as a separate princely state under British suzerainty.

Date: 1848 ( dated )

Dimension: Paper size approx.: cm 60,4 x 45,5

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Map old original colored. All the margins missing. Small foxing and browning. Conditions are as you can see in the images. 

Publisher: Rudolph Ackermann (20 April 1764 in Stollberg, Electorate of Saxony – 30 March 1834 in Finchley, London) was an Anglo-German bookseller, inventor, lithographer, publisher and businessman.
 
He attended the Latin school in Stollberg, but his wish to study at the university was made impossible by lack of financial means, and he therefore became a saddler like his father.
 
 
He worked as a saddler and coach-builder in different German cities, moved from Dresden to Basel and Paris, and then, 23 years old, settled in London. He established himself in Long Acre, the centre of coach-making in London and close to the market at Covent Garden. His extraordinary business instinct, as well as his flair for design and talent for self-promotion, won him the £200 contract to design the ceremonial coach for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, John FitzGibbon, 1st Earl of Clare. After this he designed The Royal Sailor, an 8-wheel omnibus that ran between Charing Cross, Greenwich and Woolwich.
 
Ackermann then moved to Little Russell Street where he published Imitations of Drawings of Fashionable Carriages (1791) to promote his coach-making. Other publications followed. An able artist in his own right, in 1795 he established a print-shop and drawing-school at 96 Strand. Ackermann set up a lithographic press and began a trade in prints. He later began to manufacture colours and thick carton paper for landscape and miniature painters. Within three years the premises had become too small and he moved to 101 Strand, in his own words "four doors nearer to Somerset House", the seat of the Royal Academy of Arts.
 
Between 1797 and 1800 Ackermann rapidly developed his print and book publishing business bringing together wide variety of talented artists and printmakers including Thomas Rowlandson, Isaac Cruikshank, John Bluck, Theodore Lane, Henry Singleton, Maria Cosway, F. J. Manskirchten, J. C. Stadler, J. H. Schultz, Henri Merke, Thomas Sutherland, Nicholas Heidelhoff, Augustus Pugin, and G. M. Woodward in numerous projects to produce both individual prints as well as illustrations for books and magazines, encompassing many different genres including topography, caricature, portraits, transparencies and decorative prints.
 
In 1809 he applied his press to the illustration of Repository of Arts, Literature, Fashions, which appeared monthly until 1829, by when forty volumes had appeared. The Repository documented the changing classicising fashions in dress and furniture of the Regency; Thomas Rowlandson and other distinguished artists were regular contributors. William Combe and Rowlandson's parody, Dr Syntax in search of the Picturesque first appeared in parts in Ackermann's Poetical Magazine and was then reissued as a bestselling separate book. Ackermann also published Rowlandson's masterpiece The English Dance of Death (2 volumes 1816). He introduced from Germany the fashion of the once popular Literary Annuals, beginning in 1823 with Forget-Me-Not; and he published many illustrated volumes of topography and travel, including The Microcosm of London (3 volumes, 1808–1811), Westminster Abbey (2 volumes, 1812), The Rhine (1820), The Seine (1821), and The World in Miniature (43 volumes, 1821–1826).
 
An inventor and innovator, he was important as a carriage designer and patented the Ackermann steering geometry. In 1801 he patented a method for rendering paper and cloth waterproof and erected a factory in Chelsea to make it. He was one of the first to illuminate his own premises with gas. Indeed, the introduction of lighting by gas owed much to him.
 
During the Napoleonic wars, Ackermann was an energetic supporter of the Allied cause and made significant contributions to British propaganda through his publication of anti-Napoleonic prints and military manuals. He became a naturalised British citizen in March 1809. After the Battle of Leipzig, Ackermann collected nearly a quarter of a million pounds sterling for the German relief effort.
 
As one of the pioneers of modern publishing methods, Ackermann developed an international distribution network for his publications and came to have significant commercial interests in South America. The business he founded in London flourished throughout the 19th century under the management of his descendants. He was buried at St. Clement Danes in the Strand, London.

Artist: Henry Martens (born 1790, London; d. 1868, London) was an English military illustrator and artist. He worked mainly in water-color although a few oil paintings do exist. He was the eldest of three sons of Christoph Heinrich (anglice Christopher Henry) Martens and his wife Rebecca, the others being John William and Conrad.
 
Martens exhibited pictures at various galleries including the British Institution and particularly at the Society of British Artists. Between 1828 and 1842, he showed no fewer than 34 water-colors at the latter, the majority depicting military scenes such as The Skirmish at Drumclog (1833–34), Out-post duty - English Hussars (1836), Charles I at the Battle of Naseby (1839) and Cavalry engagement at Benevente during Sir John Moore's Retreat (1842).
 
He produced work ready for etching from drawings supplied by Captain George Rodney Mundy for publication in his 1848 book, Narrative of Events in Borneo and the Celebes..., originals of which are now in Australia.
 
He created works for the firm of Rudolf Ackermann who ran the Eclipse Sporting Gallery at 191 Regent Street. The majority of these depicted military uniforms and battle scenes, particularly images of the Sikh Wars and the Kaffir Wars. The set of Sikh War lithographs published by Ackermann's in 1847 is particularly notable. Martens supplied water-color drawings which were then lithographed by John Harris. Included in the collection were prints of the Battle of Ferozeshah, the Battle of Aliwal, and the Battle of Sobraon, and Martens based his pictures on sketches supplied by Major George Francis White, an officer of the 31st Regiment who had served in the campaign.
 
In 1852, Ackermann's published a set of large colored lithographs illustrating the Kaffir War. Once again, Martens created the master painting for each plate which was engraved by Harris, but in this case, the source was Captain George Jackson Carey of the Cape Mounted Rifles who provided the artist with sketches; another sketch was supplied by Thomas Baines. While these lithographs are stirring renditions of colonial warfare, it is doubtful if Martens ever experiences fighting himself.
 
Martens is perhaps best known for his numerous illustrations of contemporary uniforms of the British and Indian Army. His most famous work, Costumes of the British Army containing 44 coloured aquatint plates, engraved once again by Harris, was published by Ackermann's between 1849 and 1853. Another set was titled The Costumes of the Indian Army, and both cost 5 shillings a set.