Select Views in Mysore, The Country of Tippoo Sultan; from Drawings Taken on the Spot by Mr. Home; with Historical Descriptions [MAGNIFICENTLY BOUND IN FOREST GREEN MOROCCO OVER WOODEN BOARDS]

London: by Mr. Bowyer. The letter-press by T. Bensley, from Figgins's types, 1794. First edition. Hardcover. Good. Folio. [2 = Urdu title], vii, 48 (12 descriptive sectional leaves in Urdu are not included in the running pagination); 29 copperplate engravings; 1 engraved colored folding map (The Carnatic and Mysore), 3 engraved folding plans (Ootradroog taken by the English Army; The Position of the Confederate Armies, under the Direction of Earl Cornwallis before Seringapatam; Bangalore with the Attacks Taken by the English Army). Text in English with added title and sectional descriptions in Urdu (in Arabic script). Later full forest green pebbled morocco over wooden boards, with floral motifs elaborately tooled in gilt; recessed diamond lozenge at both boards; gilt-tooled spine; gilt dentelles; light blue paper endleaves with gilt stars; edges gilt and gauffered; green silk ribbon marker. Dampstain at bottom outer corner (slightly affecting plates through the first third of the work), light to moderate marginal foxing throughout. Mild to light foxing and smudges to folding plans (otherwise well-preserved). A good copy, in a most handsome binding.

First edition of this collection of 29 fine engraved views after drawings by Robert Home (1750-1836) which provide an excellent visual supplement to Major Alexander Dirom's Narrative of the Campaign in India, which Terminated the War with Tippoo Sultan, in 1792 (London: W. Bulmer & Co., 1793). Among the views of Bangalore is an engraving of the English cemetery with seven monuments erected to British soldiers who fell during the taking of the city; a list of the inscriptions which appear on the monuments precedes the description of Bangalore. Other views depict Savendroog, Maugree Pagodas, Ootradroog, Ramgurry, Chenepatam, Ooleadroog, Shevagurry, Shevagunga, Peddinaigdurgum, Seringapatam, and the tomb of Hyder Ali Khan. The letterpress gives brief descriptions of the military actions taking place at the various sites depicted. A portrait painter who began his studies at the Royal Academy Schools in 1769, Home was granted permission to follow Lord Cornwallis' army as official artist during the Third Anglo-Mysore War as it expanded to Bangalore. He painted some of his most well-known paintings while in South India. In 1792 he met the artists Thomas and William Daniell who were supportive of his work as landscape artist. Home moved to Calcutta in 1795, where he had a flourishing portrait trade, and was one of the few British artists to spend the greater part of his life in India. Most of the plates are engraved by Fittler; others by Lowry, Morris, Hawksworth, Reading, Skelton, and Byrne. References: Archer and Lightbown, India Observed: India as Viewed by British Artists 1760-1860, p.41; Cox I: 305; ESTC T90237.

N.B.: Some 51 pages of French text from another work, including three engraved plates of the Swiss Alps, are bound in at the end.