Sir Richard Francis Burton, British 1821-1890- Fifteen Indian and West...

Sir Richard Francis Burton,
British 1821-1890-

Fifteen Indian and West African Topographical drawings: Goa, 1847; Elobe River, Bight of Biafra, 1862; Batanga Bay, Biafra, 1862; Dahomey, 1863; and Agbome Palace, Dahomey, 1863;

variously pencil, pen and ink on paper, four signed with initials 'R.F.B', variously inscribed, 17.5 x 12 cm. and smaller, fifteen in six common mounts, together with an uncorrected, annotated proof copy of Michael Hastings, ‘Sir Richard Burton: a biography’, 1978, annotated by the author (16).

Provenance:
Private Collection, UK.

Note:
Burton enlisted in the militia of the East India Company in 1842, serving in the 18th Bombay Native Infantry based in Gujarat in western India. The present five drawings of Goa, drawn in 1847, date to his years stationed there, with these travels evidently informing his 1851 publication ‘Goa, and the Blue Mountains: Or, Six Months of Sick Leave’.

In the early 1860s, after a period of travelling throughout the Middle East and Africa in the 1850s, Burton was appointed a Diplomatic consul to what was then the island of Fernando Po, now Bioko, in Equatorial Guinea. During these years, he spent much time exploring Western Africa, recording his experiences in a number of publications, including ‘Abeokuta and the Cameroons Mountains: An Exploration’ (1863) and ‘A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome’ (1864). It is from these travels that the present ten West African drawings, taken in 1862 and 1863, originate. The 1862 drawings of the Bight of Biafa, located in Bioko, represent his topographical interest in the island in which he at that time lived. The studies of Dahomey, taken a year later, relate directly to his (aforementioned) 1864 publication, and depict the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Abomey Palace, in the then-capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey, now in modern-day Benin.