Captain Robert Smith
(1787 - 1853)
Asiatic Costumes; A Series of Forty-Four Coloured Engravings, from designs taken from Life: With a description to each subject
Captain Robert Smith, Asiatic Costumes; A Series of Forty-Four Coloured Engravings, from designs taken from Life: With a description to each subject, London: R Ackermann, 1828
[iv] and 88 pages; 44 fine later hand-coloured engraved plates; finely rebound in early 20th-century half brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, corners neatly capped in matching calf. Spine with simple gilt lettering in the second compartment. Marbled endpapers, with the armorial bookplate of noted collector J. R. Abbey to the front pastedown. Housed in a modern bespoke slipcase in quarter brown morocco and yellow-grey marbled paper-covered boards, gilt-lettered to the spine with decorative fleurons and double gilt fillets.
7.25 x 4.25 x 1 in (18.5 x 11 x 3 cm)
LIST OF PLATES
1. Dancing Boy / 2. A Nantch, or Singing Girl / 3. Nantch girl, or Dancing Girl / 4. A Nantch Girl, or Singing Girl / 5. A Nantch Girl, or Singing Girl / 6. A Female playing on the Tumboors / 7. Musician playing on the Tumboora / 8. Musician, playing on the Saringee / 9. Musician, playing on the Cymbals / 10. Musician, with a pair of Drums / 11. Musician, with a Khole or Drum / 12. Khidmutgar, or Waiter / 13. Khidmutgar, or Fly-flapper / 14. Barburdar, or Steward / 15. Hoqqu-burdar, or Pipe-bearer / 16. Chob-dar, or Mace bearer / 17. Choakee-dar, or Watchman / 18. Shaprasse, or Porter / 19. Suntoo-burdar, or Running Footman / 20. Dak, Wala, or Postman / 21. A Surcar, or Agent / 22. Ch-hata-wala, or Umbrella carrier / 23. Barburdar, or Fan-bearer / 24. Dace or Ayah - A Nurse / 25. A Girl stringing Flowers for Wreaths / 26. Woman preparing Thread for the Loom / 27. A Gardener / 28. Native of Bengal, selling Sweetmeats/ 29. Bihishtee, or Water Carrier / 30. Dood-h-wala, or Milkman / 31. Bangy-Wala / 32. A Ryot, or Ploughman / 33. Sepoy, or Native Soldier / 34. A Native Lady in her Palkee / 35. Tonjon / 36. A Native of Rank on an Elephant / 37. Moonshee, or Interpreter / 38. A Mussulman / 39. A Brahmin / 40. Fuqeer, or Begging Friar / 41. Fuqeer, or Enthusiast / 42. Fuqeer, or Beggar / 43. A Burmese Man / 44. A Burmese Woman.
COSTUME AND COLONIAL ENCOUNTER: A BRITISH OFFICER’S PORTRAITS OF INDIA AND BURMA, 1828
Published in London by Rudolph Ackermann in 1828, Asiatic Costumes by Captain Robert Smith constitutes a rare and early example of a British military artist’s ethnographic engagement with colonial India and Burma. It features forty-four finely hand-coloured engraved plates, each accompanied by a short explanatory text, and presents a rich visual documentation of native dress and occupational identity across the Indian subcontinent during the late East India Company period.
Captain Robert Smith (1787–1873), an officer in the Bengal Engineers and later known for his architectural drawings and watercolours of Indian monuments, was stationed in northern India and Burma during a formative period of British expansion. The drawings on which these engravings are based were said to have been made “from life,” with Smith sketching figures observed in their day-to-day activities. The subjects include sepoys, fakirs, syces, nautch girls, hookah-burdars, religious mendicants, musicians, merchants, and porters, as well as men and women from the Burmese territories, which had come under British control following the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26).
Ackermann, a leading publisher of illustrated books and aquatints, issued Asiatic Costumes in a small-format octavo (sometimes described as 12mo), likely aimed at the growing British readership fascinated by the East and the expanding Empire. The plates are executed in soft-ground stipple and line engraving, finished with vibrant hand-colouring, capturing the textures of fabric, ornament, and local attire with a rare immediacy. Though the format is modest, the fidelity and clarity of the illustrations elevate the work above other contemporary costume books, many of which were compiled from second-hand sources or imaginative interpretation.
What distinguishes Asiatic Costumes is its vernacular focus: rather than courtly dress or elite subjects, it showcases the working lives of ordinary men and women, reflecting a deeper observational engagement. The inclusion of figures such as the choukee-dar (watchman), bhistee (water-carrier), and bearer (domestic servant) provides a social topography of the colonial environment, and the brief descriptions accompanying each plate serve to locate these individuals within the hierarchy and machinery of the British imperial presence.
From a scholarly perspective, the book aligns closely with the goals of the Company School of painting in India, yet translated through the lens of a British officer with both artistic skill and administrative responsibility. It also forms a bridge between earlier costume books derived from travel narratives and later, more systematic visual ethnographies produced under the Archaeological Survey of India or in the albums of later 19th-century colonial illustrators.
Extremely scarce in commerce, especially in complete form with all forty-four plates well preserved and brightly coloured, Asiatic Costumes occupies an important place in the corpus of early colonial visual anthropology. It is of particular relevance to researchers in imperial art history, colonial military culture, and the history of costume, and it stands as a highly desirable addition to any collection focused on India, Southeast Asia, or the visual legacies of empire.
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