Beschreibung:

Ceylon. A scrap album containing a small selection of sketches, watercolours and prints relating to Ceylon, plus varied other miscellaneous prints, 19th-century, laid or tipped onto approximately 110 leaves, including a watercolour courtroom scene in Ceylon, 27.5 x 40 cm, pen and ink sketch of a Ceylonese family with the family members captioned to lower margin including Mohamad Meydy..., and also captioned 'Ceylon Petition presented to E[dmund]. R[awdon]. Power', 16.5 x 28 cm, 10 large pencil sketches of various views at Scegiri dated 1853, approximately 41.5 x 26 cm (landscape & portrait formats), watercolour of a Ceylonese single mast ship by F. Caley, June 1855, with slightly torn central fold, 31 x 48.5 cm, together with other mounted/tipped-in prints relating to Ceylon including lithograph view of Mawanella Bridge by W. Purser after J. Braybrooke, engraved view of The Cinnamon Gardens near Columbo, plus a Mulready letter sheet addressed to David Power Esq., Sloane St, Knightsbridge, bearing postmark Maidstone May 24 1840, and with numerous other lithographs, engravings, etchings, and few drawings, watercolours, botanical prints, caricatures and humorous prints etc., numerous Victorian scraps and cuttings including many from Punch etc., including 'Birds Eye View of Brighton from the New Church, at the Entrance of the Town. Including the Marine Palace of Her Majesty Victoria the First, drawn, engraved and published by Jno. Bruce, Brighton, Novr. 1839', with contemporary hand-colouring, torn to lower blank margin, 29.5 x 42.5 cm, two humorous etchings by William Heath depicting the Duke of Wellington 'A Sketch of the Row in Parliament Street' and 'Termination of the Row in Parliament Street Plate 2', first plate with slight loss to lower right, both with original hand-colouring, approx. 24 x 35 cm, 19th-century half sheep, worn, large folio (52 x 32 cm) (Quantity: 1) Edmund Rawdon Power (1837-1860) edited one of the earliest literary periodicals in Ceylon. He originally arrived in Ceylon as Private Secretary to Sir Robert Wilmot Horton and was the first to introduce shorthand to Ceylon. He was also instrumental in starting a quarterly magazine 'The Ceylon Miscellany' which included a series of 'Letters on Colonial Policy' written by the Governor under the nom de plume of 'Philalethes'. Power succeeded Charles Reginald Buller as Government Agent of Kandy, where he proved very popular. He married into a literary family, his wife being the daughter of William Jerdan, Editor of the London Literary Gazette. Power is also known for taking a wager that he would walk from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, a distance of approximately 50 miles, in 16 consecutive hours. The odds were against him, but he was successful, with an hour and twenty minutes remaining.