Thomas Williamson

Thomas Williamson served in a British regiment in Bengal and was an avid sportsman while there. “A self-taught artist, Williamson turned professional when financial difficulties forced him to earn a living. He drew on his enthusiasm and knowledge as a sportsman and produced sporting and natural history paintings, etchings, and illustrations. He sometimes worked in oils but more frequently in water colours, and he was an accomplished etcher”. After being recalled to England, “Williamson’s knowledge of wild life and Oriental sports had come to the notice of the Orme family” (Rohatgi & Parlett).

The Orme’s contracted with celebrated painter Samuel Howitt to prepare finished watercolours based on Williamson’s original sketches during his time in India, and published the work, originally in 20 parts, between 1805 and 1807. The result was “the most beautiful book on Indian sport in existence” (Schwerdt). The work, however, is not merely a sporting book. As Williamson writes in the Preface, the work “is offered to the public as depicting the Manners, Customs, Scenery, and Costume of a territory now intimately blended with the British Empire, and of such importance to its welfare, as to annex a certain degree of consequence to every publications, that either exhibits, or professes to impart, a knowledge of whatever may hitherto have been concealed, or that remains unfolded to our view.” The plates, etched by J. Clarck. Howitt and Williamson’s images are vivid depictions of both the chase and the Indian scenery.