01 Work, The Art of War, Matthew Somerville Morgan's The Storming Of Delhi, with footnotes

Matthew Somerville Morgan

The Storming Of Delhi, c. 1859

Print (coloured) on paper

 H: 39 cm x W:52 cm

Private collection

Thomas H. Sherratt’s original engraving and etching, The Storming of Delhi is based upon a design created by Matthew Somerville Morgan (M. S. Morgan), depicting the siege of Kashmiri Gate (Delhi) during the Uprising of 1857.

By 14 September 1857 the British had about 9,000 men before the rebel-held city of Delhi. A third were British while the rest were Sikhs, Punjabis and Gurkhas. The assault began when artillery breached the city walls and sappers blew in the Kashmir Gate. It took a week of vicious street fighting before Delhi was finally taken. The British and their Indian allies then ransacked the city in an orgy of looting and killing. The capture of Delhi was key to the suppression of the Indian Mutiny (1857-1859).

Matthew Somerville Morgan (27 April 1837 – 2 June 1890) was born in London. He studied scene painting and followed his profession at London's Princess's Theatre, but became artist and correspondent for the Illustrated London News. In 1859 Morgan worked in northern Italy covering the bloody Franco-Austrian War. He also studied in Paris, Italy, and Spain, and was one of the first artists to penetrate into the interior of Africa, which he did in 1858 by way of French Algeria. In 1859, he reported the Second Italian War of Independence for the News.

He became joint editor and proprietor of the Tomahawk, a comic illustrated London paper, and its artist. By 21 September 1861, the London publication Fun began its run, with Morgan on board as an artist.

The most notable of his cartoons were attacks on the royal family, the first that were ever made. 

He came to the United States in 1870 under an engagement with Frank Leslie, and, after working as caricaturist on Leslie's publications, acted as manager of several New York theatres. His greatest fame came during the 1872 presidential campaign, when Morgan drew cartoons on behalf of the Liberal Republicans against President Ulysses S. Grant. His caricatures of politicians he approved of were more like portraiture. By 1874, 'Leslie's Illustrated Weekly' was using Morgan's cartoons only sporadically, and relying more on those of Joseph Keppler, but Morgan continued to do illustrations of events and American scenes. He went in 1880 to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was manager of the Strobridge Lithographing Company until 1885, and did much to improve the character of theatrical lithography. He also founded the Matt Morgan Art Pottery Company there in 1883, and the Cincinnati Art Students' League. Reportedly he also helped design sets for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

He returned to New York City in 1887. Morgan contributed to the exhibitions of the American Watercolor Society, and painted a series of large panoramic pictures, representing battles of the Civil War, which were exhibited in Cincinnati in 1886 and elsewhere.

Morgan died of pericarditis and pleurisy in New York City on 2 June 1890. More on Matthew Somerville Morgan

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