Northern India

Circa 1850s

Steel engraving on paper

Print size: 10 x 13 in (25.5 x 33 cm)
Sheet size: 10.75 x 14 in (27 x 35.5 cm)

A Decorative Map of Northern India with Vignette Views and Ornamental Border (Mid-19th Century)

A highly decorative hand-coloured and detailed mid-19th-century map of Northern India, which was drawn and engraved by J Rapkin (vignettes by A H Wray & J H Kernot) and published in John Tallis's Illustrated Atlas (London & New York: John Tallis & Co., circa 1850s).

The Illustrated Atlas, published from 1849 to 1853, was the last decorative world atlas. The Northern India map was typical of the many fine ones that appeared in this work with its decorative border and attractive vignettes. Illustrated are views of the British Residency in Hyderabad, the ruins of Old Delhi, a “Car of Juggernaut (Lord Jagganath)”, a tiger hunt, and “Hindoos” (an Indian man and woman) and the East India Company's insignia at the upper left corner.

The map presents a view of the subcontinent’s eastern and northeastern regions, with particular visual emphasis on Bengal, Assam, the eastern Gangetic plain, and the Himalayan frontier. While the title foregrounds Northern India, the composition places significant geographic and pictorial weight on the eastern territories, aligning the sheet naturally with an Eastern India thematic context.

Topographically, the map delineates major river systems, mountain ranges, settlements, and provincial boundaries, reflecting mid-nineteenth-century British cartographic conventions. The inclusion of scenic panels—likely representing key eastern cities, monuments, or landscapes—situates the work within the tradition of pictorial imperial mapping, in which geography, architecture, and empire were presented as an integrated visual narrative.

Combining cartographic utility, decorative refinement, and colonial visual culture, the sheet stands as a compelling example of ornamental map production and of the visual framing of Eastern India within nineteenth-century British geographic imagination.

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