Lot Essay
Simpson travelled a second time to India, arriving on 30 October 1875, but it was a very different expedition to his first. Employed by The Illustrated London News, he was sent out to cover the Prince of Wales's Indian tour, which he later described as 'Four months of Lord Mayor's Show' (The Autobiography etc, op.cit., p.270). Simpson found the ceremonies and crowds accompanying the Prince's tour wearisome as they hindered his time to make sketches. In contrast, the four weeks spent tiger shooting in the Terai jungle (on the border of India and Nepal), hosted by Sir Jung Bahadur Rana (the Ranas were hereditary ministers to the Kings of Nepal), were the highlight of his trip. He wrote 'I was one of the very few admitted into the Terai, where the Prince spent a few weeks shooting. These few weeks, far from the maddening crowd, made the only pleasant time I had during the four months. I had a tent to myself and an elephant to take me about.' (The Autobiography etc., op.cit., p.270). Simpson produced some of his best work there depicting the 700 or so elephants used to beat the jungle. His gift for newsworthy pictures was given great scope with incidents such as when the Prince was charged by a tiger, a picture subsequently purchased along with 14 others by the Royal Couple. Simpson exhibited 200 watercolours and drawings from this tour in 1876 in London in the Burlington Gallery, a good number of which were purchased by Lord Northbrook. In 1876 he also published the pictures purchased by the Royal Couple in a book entitled Shikare and Tomasha, a souvenir of the visit of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales to India.