Kolkata, West Bengal.

This spectacular and very rare map is one of the most beautiful early city plans printed in India. It was issued by Jean-Baptiste Tassin’s Oriental Lithographic Press in Calcutta, and features exceptionally fine hand colouring, executed by Bengali colourists employing Indian pigments, granting it an extraordinary appearance distinct from maps produced in Europe.

The maps provides an extremely detailed portrayal of Calcutta, which was then the capital of the ‘Company Raj’ and India’s preeminent commercial and cultural centre, with a population of almost 200,000. The city proper, comprised of densely populated urban blocks coloured in red, is confined by the Hooghly River and the New Circular Canal. The great citadel of Fort William, built between 1757 and 1764, rises out of the middle of the Esplanade on the south side of town. True to European Enlightenment era urban models, Calcutta is traversed by several broad thoroughfares, although by contrast most of the city is comprised of narrow, curving streets and alleyways, common to many traditional Indian cities.

The city features a number of squares, dominated by grand edifices, identified by the ‘Reference’, including: A. Supreme Court; B. City Hall; C. Treasury; D. Post Office; E. Theatre; G. Surveyor General’s Office; K. Hindoo (Hindu) College; L. Mussuleman (Muslim) College; and P. St. Andrews Church; in addition to labeling 23 ‘Bazars’, the lifeblood of Calcutta’s economy.

Tassin’s plan is based on Major John Augustus Schalch and Captain Thomas Prinsep’s groundbreaking survey of Calcutta and its environs, conducted between 1820 and 1828. This endeavour was instigated by the need to provide the city with a comprehensive drainage system, although it ended up having much broader applications.