India.- Company School (circa 1790-1810) and Welland (Rachel, active 1798-1804) A composite album with over 115 drawings and watercolours executed and collected from a tour of India, including two fine Company School gouache drawings of a Red-whiskered bulbul, or Persian nightingale, and another Bulbul on a sprig of a flowering cotton plant, 25 botanical studies with many signed by Welland, and with approximately 65 studies of Indian figures, costumes, craft and artisanal activities also by Welland, with some possibly by other Indian hands, and with a further 22 of traditional Indian instruments, watercolours, some with bodycolour, many with graphite under-drawing, some with ink and wash borders, on various papers, majority wove sheets watermarked 'J. Ruse 1801', some watermarked 'J. Taylor 1799', neatly tipped onto album leaves, each album leaf approx. 445 x 280 mm. (17 1/2 x 11 in), numerous annotations and description of subjects depicted, some annotated in Hindi, occasional spotting and surface dirt, handling creases, original boards, manuscript label on upper cover that reads 'Hindostanee', very worn, folio, [circa 1798-1804].

⁂ An extensive collection of studies of Indian costume and culture, with contemporary annotations, and an impressive survey of traditional Indian instruments circa 1800.