WILLIAMSON, Thomas, & Samuel Howitt.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Oriental Field Sports; A superlative copy with pre-publication watermarks of the rare first edition of "the most beautiful book on Indian sport in existence" (Schwerdt) and justifiably described by the distinguished art historian Martin Hardie as "one of the finest series of sporting plates ever published".The vivacious Samuel Howitt was a self-taught artist who started life as a man of independent means; he was a keen sportsman, hunter, rider, and angler. He "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" (ODNB). He was Thomas Rowlandson's brother-in-law and his "early watercolour style has similarities to Rowlandson's, but Howitt developed a more individual style as his career as a sporting artist progressed. He seems to have had an innate capacity for drawing animals, from commonplace hare and deer to exotic species that he studied in menageries. He was an animated draughtsman, and his drawings of hunts and sporting events have a fluidity and excitement fitting to the subject" (ibid.). The author, Captain Thomas Williamson, was a multi-faceted soldier who served for 20 years with the Bengal army. Peremptorily dismissed from the service after voicing his opinion on British military policy in a newspaper article, he was forced to become, in the words of one historian, a reluctant "hack polymath" (Edwards, p. 67

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