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Thomas Williamson (1758-1817) and Samuel Howitt (1765-1822)
Oriental Field Sports being a complete, detailed, and accurate description of the wild sports of the East and exhibiting, in a novel and interesting manner, the natural history of the elephant, the rhinoceros, the tiger... and other undomesticated animals...
London: Edward Orme, 1807
Engravings with original hand-coloring.
Williamson states in the Preface, the work "is offered to the public as depicting the Manners, Customs, Scenery, and Costume of a territory now intimately blended with the British Empire, and of such importance to its welfare, as to annex a certain degree of consequence to every publications, that either exhibits, or professes to impart, a knowledge of whatever may hitherto have been concealed, or that remains unfolded to our view."
Howitt based his superb aquatints on Captain Thomas Williamson’s original on-site sketches. Howitt was a keen sportsman, hunter, rider, and angler. “A self-taught artist, 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. He sometimes worked in oils but more frequently in watercolours, and he was an accomplished etcher” (Ruth Cohn for DNB).
