Tuesday 18 January

The Estate of Major-General Claude Martin at Lucknow

Rosie Llewellyn-Jones

This talk offers a unique glimpse into a European household in 18th-century India. Major General Claude Martin was a French soldier who joined the Bengal Army after the French lost Pondicherry. Entering the service of the Nawab of Avadh, he became not only the richest European of his day but a purveyor of Enlightenment ideas. Martin’s biographer discusses his paintings, silverware, jewellery, armoury, fabrics, scientific equipment, carriages and boats, and his large library, based on the inventory of his possessions and the examinations of experts John Ford, Jane Desborough, Robert Elgood, Charles Greig, Rosemary Crill and Jean-Marie Lafont.

Dr Rosie Llewellyn-Jones MBE is the editor of The Estate of Major-General Claude Martin at Lucknow: An Indian Inventory (Cambridge Scholars 2021), her third book on Martin.