Manuscript Panorama of Madras.

£75,000 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books · No longer available

rare eighteenth-century manuscript panorama of Madras One of the earliest accurate views of Chennai (Madras) and possibly the first from the mainland. Large and rare representation of Chennai and Fort St. George from the first half of the eighteenth century. In the foreground lies the now extinct Elambore river, originally the key for Fort St. George's establishment, and the Island of Chennai. The Cooum River, although not visible, had already been joined with Elambore to create the Island which housed the stables and artillery range and still survives today. We have been unable to fine any earlier depictions of Chennai and Fort St. George from this perspective. By 1746 an additional bastion had been created on the Island, causing the river to flow through the Fort, which is only just starting to be built in this view ('new fortifications'), placing it likely just a few years before. This view was likely produced by a French naval officer ('lieutenant') who was unhindered by the need of Britain and the East India Company to present Fort St. George as an impregnable outpost. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries Britain had struggled to expand its interest in India beyond the trade posts along the eastern coast, with heavy French influence in the south surrounding their stronghold Pondicherry and the Maratha Confederacy still dominating northern India. They repeatedly had to fall back on Fort St. George as a last redoubt against both Indian and French attacks,

• Binding: Hardcover

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