Composite: India peninsula

Authorship and object

A later state of Faden's peninsula map (plate dated 1792), here in full hand-colour on two sheets and bound into his General Atlas of 1811; it reaches south to take in the northern part of Ceylon.

From campaign sheet to atlas plate

The same detailed southern survey now sits within a general atlas — the working military map absorbed into the reference cartography of the age. By the time of this state, after the fall of Seringapatam in 1799, the south it depicts was substantially under British control.

The gaze

The map's journey from separate survey sheet to atlas plate mirrors the larger story: hard-won survey knowledge of a contested region settling, within a few years, into the calm coloured image of an India increasingly held.