François Balthazar Solvyns
(1760 - 1824)
The Costume of Hindostan: Elucidated by Sixty Coloured Engravings; With Descriptions in English and French, Taken in the Years 1798 and 1799. By Balt. Solvyns, of Calcutta
François Balthazar Solvyns, The Costume of Hindostan: Elucidated by Sixty Coloured Engravings; With Descriptions in English and French, Taken in the Years 1798 and 1799. By Balt. Solvyns, of Calcutta, London: Edward Orme, 1807
254 unnumbered pages, 4 hand-coloured soft-ground etchings, and 56 hand-coloured line- or stipple-engraved plates by Scott or Vivares, after François Balthazar Solvyns, along with descriptions for each plate in English and French; contemporary half calf over marbled paper-covered boards housed in a green cloth slipcase.
14.5 x 10.5 in (37 x 26.5 cm)
LIST OF PLATES
1. Frontis. An Ooria or Orissa Brahmun, offering his devotions to the Sun / 2. A Chittery / 3. A Dybuck [Astrologer/Astronomer] / 4. An Auhheer, or seller of Milk, Curds, Whey and Buttermilk / 5. Rowanny Bearers, or Chairmen / 6. Tauntees, or Weavers / 7. B'Haut / 8. A Dandy, or Boatman / 9. A Jellee-a, or Fisherman / 10. Brijbasi / 11. Kawra, or Hog-Keepers, With Their Method of Taking Pigs to Market / 12. Puckimar, or Bird-Catcher / 13. Sircar / 14. A Jummadar / 15. A Choobdar, or Assahburdar, With a Long Silver Stick, the Badge of His Office / 16. Kherch-Burdar, or House Purveyor / 17. A B'heeshty or Waterman, Carrying Water in His Mushuck or Leathern Bag / 18. Hooka-Burdar, or Hooka Purveyor, Carrying the Hooka / 19. A Durzee, or Taylor / 20. A Baulber. [Barber] / 21. A Hircarrah. [Messenger] / 22. A Peada, or Footman / 23. Native Coachman to an European / 24. A Syce or Groom / 25. An Aubdar, or Cooler of Water and Wines / 26. Corah-Burdar / 27. A Doorea-a, or Dog Keeper / 28. A Bansee / 29. A Man of Distinction in his Family Dress / 30. A Sircar, Dressed in a Courta; and an Eklie Over His Shoulders / 31. Bauluck / 32. A behaleea / 33. A Sepoy. [Native Soldier in Native Dress] / 34. A Sepoy [in European Dress] / 35. A Brigbasi / 36. A Woman of Distinction / 37. A Gwallin, or Milk Woman / 38. A Woman of Inferior Rank / 39. A Hidgra, or Hermaphrodite / 40. A Ramganny, or Dancing Girl / 41. A Polye, or Fisherwoman / 42. Beeshnub, Worshipper of Vishnoo the preserving attribute of the diety / 43. An Oordabahoo [Faquir] / 44. Nariel, or Cocoa Nut Hooka / 45. The Hindoo Method of Eating the Paun / 46. A Sunk, or Chank, and Gunta, or Tingaree / 47. A Timboora / 48. A Sittara, or Guittar / 49. A Sarinda, or Violin / 50. Pennauck or Been / 51. Saringee, played at Nautches & c / 52. A Tubla. [Wooden Drum] / 53. A D'Holuc. [Small Drum] / 54. Jultrung.[China Cups] / 55. D'Hauk. / 56. Nagra. [Musical Instrument] / 57. Kaura. [Musical Instrument] / 58. Pukwauz. [Musical Instrument] / 59. Jugo Jhumpo. [Musical Instrument] / 60. Surmungla. [Instrument]
COSTUMES, CASTES AND COLONIAL VISION: SOLVYNS’S COSTUME OF HINDOSTAN, ORME EDITION, 1807
A fine and complete example of the 1807 London edition of The Costume of Hindostan, one of the earliest and most influential printed endeavours to systematically depict and document the dress, occupations, and social types of the Indian subcontinent through the eyes of a European resident. François Balthazar Solvyns, a Flemish marine painter turned ethnographic artist, resided in Calcutta from 1791 to 1804, during which time he produced an extraordinary visual record of Indian society. The present edition, published by Edward Orme, presents sixty finely hand-coloured stipple engravings based on Solvyns’s original drawings, accompanied by bilingual descriptions in English and French.
Each plate captures figures from across the spectrum of colonial India—Brahmins, astrologers, artisans, musicians, boatmen, religious mendicants, and women of various ranks—rendered with an unusual sensitivity to detail, material texture, and occupational identity. In contrast to the prevailing orientalist focus on courtly opulence, Solvyns’s approach was striking in its vernacular scope, aligning more closely with proto-anthropological observation than romanticised fantasy. His interest lay in everyday practices, caste-based dress, ritual activity, and tools of livelihood—elements typically neglected in Western representations of India.
This edition is based on Solvyns’s original Calcutta publication, A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings Descriptive of the Manners, Customs and Dresses of the Hindoos (1799), a large folio work printed locally and now exceedingly rare. Following limited commercial success in India, Solvyns returned to Europe, where his project found more enthusiastic reception. The Orme edition of 1804 (with reissues in 1807 and later) refined the original drawings for a British audience, using the London engravers Vivares and Scott, and offered a smaller, more accessible format with enhanced printing and vibrant hand-colouring.
Solvyns’s ambition to visualise the cultural and occupational diversity of India culminated in his most elaborate publication, Les Hindous; ou Description de leurs Moeurs, Coutumes, et Cérémonies, issued in Paris between 1808 and 1812 in four volumes, with 292 hand-coloured engravings. Les Hindous was a more comprehensive and revised reworking of his earlier material, organised thematically and accompanied by extended commentary in French. Though the Paris edition was not a commercial success in its own time, it is today regarded as a monumental achievement in colonial visual ethnography and a forerunner of 19th-century efforts to catalogue empire through image and text.
Together, these works form a coherent visual anthropology of the Indian subcontinent as perceived through the colonial gaze. Solvyns’s work stands at the confluence of art, ethnography, and imperial curiosity, bridging Enlightenment empiricism with the emerging technologies of printed visual reproduction. The Costume of Hindostan is today valued not only for its artistic refinement but also for its role in shaping European perceptions of India and its peoples—anticipating later photographic surveys by the Archaeological Survey of India and the extensive visual documentation of the Raj.
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