The Relief of Lucknow: Henry Hugh Armstead’s &lt;i&gt;Outram Shield&lt;/i&gt; (c. 1858–62)

Jason Edwards

doi:10.16995/ntn.734

Abstract

This article examines, in unprecedented close detail and for the first time, in an imperial studies context, a significant piece of Victorian silver testimonial sculpture. Challenging the previous separation of the fields of silver sculpture studies, Victorian sculpture studies, and studies of the Indian Mutiny and its aftermath, the article suggests that Armstead’s shield has much to teach us about the precise contour and characters of mid-Victorian realism, eclecticism, historicism, and cosmopolitanism.

Highlights

This article considers, in detail for the first time, Victorian sculptor and silversmith Henry Hugh Armstead’s mid-nineteenth-century Outram Shield: a silver- and gold-damascened steel testimonial presented to Lieutenant General Sir James Outram (Fig. 1).[1]
The shield had been commissioned from London silversmiths Hunt & Roskell, in June 1858, by Outram’s European ‘friends and admirers’ in Bombay as a sign of their ‘appreciation of those sterling abilities’ which had ‘marked his brilliant career’, and in ‘lasting testimony to his gallantry, self-devotion and high chivalrous bearing’ during the Relief of Lucknow, a key moment in the Indian Uprising in 1857, in which the British residency was besieged.[2]
Outram received the shield at a private ceremony at his Kensington home in June 1862, ‘overcome by the kindness’ of his friends’ ‘too flattering estimate’ (Goldsmid, i, 343)

Summary

Introduction

This article considers, in detail for the first time, Victorian sculptor and silversmith Henry Hugh Armstead’s mid-nineteenth-century Outram Shield: a silver- and gold-damascened steel testimonial presented to Lieutenant General Sir James Outram (Fig. 1).[1].

Results

Conclusion