File copy. The Earl of Lytton, Viceroy of India, 1876-1880

An extremely unusual portrait of the Earl of Lytton, who was Viceroy of India from 1876 to 1880. The visible image is 11¼ x 8¼ ins [23.7 x 21 cm] and shows the Viceroy seated in a throne in front of three uniformed attendants. He wears the large gold medal given at the Imperial Assemblage in Delhi in 1877, when he declared Queen Victoria’s assumption of the title Empress of India and the photograph was likely to have been taken shortly after that event as the medal was not usually worn by British ,em in uniform. Lytton’s unusual posture is accounted for in biographies by the fact that he suffered from a condition which made sitting very uncomfortable. It will be noted that the attendants wear uniforms incorporating Lord Lytton’s monogram as these chnaged with each Viceregal reign.  nov26/3

Like all the images in this category this is a copy made by our printer in exactly the same size as the original which we sold at some time in the last ten years. It is printed on thin white card leaving a margin around the image. These were made for our own reference purposes and we are now releasing the very few extra copies we had made at the time from an original now in a private or institutional collection. Read more at the head of the category.