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Belnos (Mrs S[ophia] C[harlotte]), The Sundhya or the Daily Prayers of the Brahmins. Illustrated in a Series of Original Drawings from Nature, demonstrating their Attitudes and Different Signs and Figures performed by them during the Ceremonies of their Morning Devotions, and likewise their Poojas. Together with a Descriptive Text annexed to each Plate, and the Prayers from the Sanscrit, translated into English, 1st edition, [London: Day & Son], 1851

Hand-coloured lithographic vignette title page, 24 hand-coloured lithographic plates each measuring 75 x 58 cm, a preface leaf, 21 leaves of descriptive text annexed to each plate, and the Sanskrit prayers translated into English by Mrs S C Belnos; original half green cloth over marbled paper-covered boards, corners also bound in matching green cloth; large green printed title label mounted to upper cover, ruled and lettered in black within a double-line border. The institutional ownership stamp of Königliche Hof- und Staatsbibliothek, Bayern (Royal Court and State Library of Bavaria) is stamped on the inner board.
24.25 x 17.5 in (61.5 x 44.5 cm)

LIST OF PLATES
1. (Coloured frontispiece) Junction of the Ganges & the Jumna rivers / 2. The Brahmins First Prayer to the Curoo / 3. Gungashtuk / 4. Koorma (Tortoise) / 5 & 6. [assorted devotional hand and finger attitudes] / 7. Pooruck Pranaiyam - Kumbuck – Raichuck / 8. Urghai, offering of water, rice &c, &c / 9. Soorya / 10. Gayatri Jup (The Secret Prayer) / 11. Signs of the Gayatri / 12. Gyan / 13. Bhyraggai / 14 & 15. [assorted religious vessels and captions] / 16. Poojah of Vishnoo (pouring water on the Saligram) / 17. Poojah of Mahadeo / 18. Pooja of Devee - Shico Shiva (Pudmasheen) / 19. Kuranyasa in the Gayatri Devee Pooja (Six hand signs) / 20. [six devotional arm, face, chest, and hand signs] / 21. Poojah of Soorya / 22. Pooja of Gunesh / 23. Pooja of Hunooman / 24. Punch Agnee / 25. Signs worn by Brahmins.

THE ART OF DEVOTION: MRS BELNOS’S RARE LITHOGRAPHIC VISION OF BRAHMINICAL PRAYER RITUALS IN BENGAL

This scarce and visually striking folio is the most important published work of Sophie Charlotte Belnos, one of the few European women artists and observers who documented Indian devotional practices through direct observation during the mid-19th century. The Sundhya presents a detailed visual ethnography of the ritual life of Bengali Brahmins, based on Belnos’s first-hand study of morning prayer rites, mudras (symbolic hand gestures), and pooja ceremonies performed along the banks of the Ganges and in temple precincts.

Each of the sixteen plates—lithographed by Day and Son after Belnos’s original drawings—portrays a sequence of ritual gestures, postures, and symbolic movements, often performed in partial or full immersion in water. The prayers, at places given in the original Sanskrit, invoke various Hindu deities like Vishnu, Hanuman and Mahadeva. They come with pictorial illustrations that represent the manner of their actual performance. The book also carries information on the accessories crucial to the conduct of such prayers, like dhoodan and shunkh. The accompanying letterpress descriptions, both in English and transliterated Sanskrit, reveal Belnos’s intent to provide not merely visual but anthropological fidelity, foreshadowing later orientalist studies. The book, in Sophie Charlotte Belnos's own words, intends to "communicate a correct idea of the practices.... and not to enter into the recondite subject of religion itself."

Belnos was an amateur artist who became a professional lithographer later. She was the wife of French miniature artist and lithographer Jean-Jacques Belnos, who is credited with introducing lithographic printing in India in 1822. She had set up a studio in Calcutta in 1847, and many of her illustrations depict the daily life and customs of Indians, many of which are depicted in the present lot and Twenty-four Plates Illustrative of Hindoo and European Manners in Bengal.

Unlike many of her male contemporaries, she adopted a more intimate, observational lens, portraying her subjects with composure and dignity rather than spectacle. Her work stands apart in the genre of Company School art and early colonial ethnography.

The volume is also notable for its dedication to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, reflecting both official patronage and intended circulation within learnt and administrative circles.

Provenance:
1) From the library of the Schlagintweit brothers, 19th-century German explorers of India and Central Asia (blind stamp 'Ex bibliotheca Schlagintweit' at foot of the title page)
2) Konrad, prince of Bavaria (1883-1963; bookplate to front pastedown, ink stamp to rear free endpaper).

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