Olympia-2015

The finest surviving example of Skinner’sluxury manuscript commissions of the 1830s,a description of the ruling families of NorthernIndia illustrated with portraits of men who werein large part Skinner’s contemporaries. Itincludes a painting and text absent from bothearlier copies, the text likely written by Skinneras an addition to this copy, and theaccompanying painting almost certainly takenfrom life, as it depicts an adolescent RajaBalwant Singh of Bharatpur, who only accededto his throne in 1835, after almost a decade ofmaternal regency.James Skinner was born in 1778 to a Scottishfather and a Rajput mother, and educated to anextent, at a series of charity schools in Calcutta;in 1796 he was, presumably having achievedsufficient erudition, apprenticed to a Calcuttaprinter. This brief brush with the printed wordwas not a success: he ran away. Through thegood offices of a relation, he was introduced toDe Boigne, a French mercenary then in the service of Sindhia. Skinner served withdistinction under De Boigne and then his successor, Perron. This period was alively one, with the region a hotbed of intrigue and martial strife, and Skinner sawservice at Hansi and Delhi. After Lake’s defeat of the Marathas at Delhi in 1803,Skinner accepted the British offer of a non-commissioned cavalry command. Forthe next twenty-odd years he fought in British service, and forged a reputation asone of the foremost commanders of his day.