Egron Lundgren - Lord Clyde and His Staff

unframed 19.2 x 30.4 cm (7 ½ x 12 in.)
framed 41 x 51 cm (16 ⅛ x 20 ⅛ in.)

Thomas Agnew’s & Sons, Manchester;

Sam Mendel (1811-1884), Manley Hall, Whalley Range, Manchester;.1 

K. Asplund, Egron Lundgren, Vol. II, 1915, p. 186, p. 162, appendix F, p. 186, No. 141 

K. Asplund, Med Egron Lundgren i Indien. Ett urval av konstnärens akvareller och teckningar 1858-1859, 1931, illustrated pl. 34

S. Nilson & N. Gupta, The Painters Eye, Egron Lundgren and India, 1992, illustrated p. 111

Manchester, Trafford Park, The Royal Jubilee Exhibition, 3 May-10 November 1887, no. 1206 ”Lord Clyde and his Staff"

In 1857 an uprising had broken out in India, known as ”The Mutiny". As far as British relations with India were concerned, the event represented a watershed, as a result of which the East India Company was abolished while India was granted Crown Colony status. Formidable political and economic interests were at stake and the British public knew almost nothing about the conditions in the country where the events were unfolding. The Times had sent one of their reporters, William Howard Russel, who had made a name for himself as a special correspondent during the Crimean War, and the photographer Felice A. Beato to report. The art dealers Thomas Agnews’s & Sons in Manchester who had previously published a richly illustrated volume on the Crimean War, now planned a similar publication on India and contracted Egron Lundgren. The contract guaranteed Lundgren compensation for the period during which he would be out of touch with his normal patrons, and copyright to any works produced on the outward or homeward voyages; everything he produced in India was the property of Thomas Agnews’s & Sons. From Queen Victoria herself, who often evinced a particularly warm interest in India, Lundgren received a commission for watercolors which he later dispatched to her at regular intervals (now in the library at Windsor Castle). She also supplied him with introductory letters.2  

Lundgren departed from Southhampton 4th February on the frigate ”Pera”, bound for Alexandria. From Alexandria he took the train to Kairo. Following a ten days long stay in Egypt during which he explored the vicinity of Kairo, Lundgren boarded the ”Bengal” at Suez bound for Calcutta via Ceylon. It arrived in Calcutta on 20th March. Lundgren spent about three months in Calcutta before he ventured inland to the war zones. Through his introductory letters he received an invitation from Field Master Sir Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, Commander-in-Chief of the British army in India, to accompany him on the battlefields. On 24 November Lundgren experienced his first battle during the campaign in Oudh. In his diary Lundgren writes about a dangerous night march during which the enemy at any moment could have used the darkness to attack. When morning breaks he describes how Lord Clyde and his staff just passes in front of him (S. Nilson & N. Gupta, op. cit., p. 111):

”Lord Clyde and the staff road past me at full gallop; they all looked grim in the morning light, their boots dripping wet as if they had just forded a river and their attic thick with dust and dirt. At their heels rode carrabineers and Sikh cavalry with red turbans and lances.”

The present work was probably drawn in conjunction with this particular occasion. Throughout the course of his stay in India, Lundgren had developed an ability to quickly render events with his pen that unfolded in front of him. 

During the military campaigns Lundgren came to know William  Howard Russel. In 1860 Russell published his experience of the war, My Diary in India, in the Year 1858-9, I-II, with eleven lithographs after works by Lundgren.