Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood
Los 581
Circle of Adam Buck [1776-1852]-A miniature portrait of Major General Sir William Blackburne, Indian Army, head and shoulders, indistinctly initialled lower right,:-on ivory, oval 6.5cm, in a gold frame with guilloche enamel and hair plait reverse, together with a miniature oval painting of the Geneva and the river Rhone with Mont Blanc in the distance, fashionable pedestrians and horsemen in the foreground, 8.5 x 12cm, and a group of contemporary manuscript diary extracts and William IV Commission to the rank of Major General in The East Indies* Notes. Blackburne entered the Madras Army as a cadet in 1782 where he received an ensigns commission in 1783 and in 1790 was promoted to lieutenant. Having served in Madura, Tamil Nadu and Tinnevelly and the campaign to defeat Tipu Sultan in 1792, his skill as a linguist led to his being employed as a Maratha interpreter in Tanjore during the enquiry into the right of succession to the Tanjore Raj and later held the post of Maratha Interpreter in Tanjore. In 1801 he was appointed Resident at the Tanjore Court and held that office until he left India in 1823. Blackburne commanded his soldiers to repel two invasions of the local province. In 1804 having exposed fraud and oppression on the part of the native officials in Tanjore, Blackburne was employed by The Madras Government to remodel the local administration both in Tanjore and the native state of Pukukota. Blackburne left India in 1823 and received the honour of a knighthood in 1838, the year before he died. The landscape that accompanies the miniature is, by family repute, a contemporary and related view in India.
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