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Old 22nd January 2017, 11:40 AM   #26
ariel
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Egerton's book consists essentially of 2 parts.

The main one is a catalog of collection of the old India House, showing systematic groupings of weapons that came to England over many years from other sources. These are presented as careful drawings. The attribution was based on somebody else's notes and inevitably contained errors.

For example, #332 in Plate IX is an Ottoman yataghan and ( likely) Arabian Shafra ( #348) grouped together with Nepalese arms. Likely, they were COLLECTED in Nepal and Egerton fully relied on the information from an unknown visitor there.

Plate XIV ( "Arms of Sindh") presents a classical Afghani Choora ( #624). Interestingly, its actual description states that it was collected in Banu (formerly Dhulipnagar, subsequently Edwardsabad), a town in the Pahtunhwa province of contemporary Western Pakistan, right at the Eastern opening of the Khyber Pass.

The second, a smaller, part of the book is a personal Egerton Collection: as opposed to the first one the items are actually photographed while hung on walls. This one is interesting from the point of view of the current discussion. Whereas most of the examples were acquired by Egerton from other British collections ( mostly of Colonel Hamilton) and European sales, there is a large number labeled as " Bought at Delhi, 1855". Was it the time of the alleged trip to India mentioned by Robinson?

Other than this flimsy hint I could not find any mention of actual trip to India in several biographies of Lord Egerton.
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