'Prize Agents extracting Treasure', September 1857 (c)

Coloured lithograph from 'The Campaign in India 1857-58', a series of 26 coloured lithographs by William Simpson, E Walker and others, after G F Atkinson, published by Day and Son, 1857-1858.

Despite strict orders against individual looting, many of Delhi's treasures filled the pockets of the troops who captured the city during the Indian Mutiny (1857-1859). The loot was supposed to have been handed over to official prize agents who would then auction it and divide the proceeds. As this print depicts, the agents and their soldiers had few scruples when it came to how they gathered the loot. Contemporaries estimated the auctioned Delhi treasure to be worth over half a million pounds.