Antoine Polier

☆ Save On Wikipedia ↗
Antoine Polier
Col. Polier's Nautch (Lucknow, c.1780), painted by Mihr Chand
Born1741
Lausanne, Switzerland
Died9 February 1795[1]
France
OccupationEngineer
Children3

Colonel Antoine-Louis Henri de Polier (1741 – 9 February 1795) was a Swiss army officer and art collector who served in the East India Company's Presidency armies during the eighteenth century. He was the father of Adolphe de Polier.

Life

Polier, Claude Martin, John Wombwell and Johann Zoffany surrounded by servants and Polier's art collection.
Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match (Johan Zoffany, c. 1785)

Antoine-Louis was born in Lausanne[2] from a French Huguenot family who emigrated to Switzerland in the mid 16th century to escape the wars of religion. He was the youngest son of Jacques-Henri de Polier and his wife Jeanne-Françoise Moreau. He later learned Hindi and Persian.

Antoine Polier was an engineer from Lausanne who supported the military adventures of Robert Clive and later became a rich trader and loyal supporter of the British administration in Calcutta. He devoted his free moments to collecting rare manuscripts in Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic. Many were sent back to France to augment the growing collection in the Royal Library. France was now the center for the study of ancient Indian languages and its 'orientalism' spread to Germany in the early 1800s as Europe began to show a keen interest in early Indian-Persian-Zoroastrian origins.[2] He designed the Bibiyapur Kothi, a royal residence outside of Lucknow.[3]

On learning Indian mythology, Polier notes:[4]

When one begins such a study without the advantage of possessing the Samscrite[Sanskrit], or sacred, tongue of the Indous, which the Pundits or savants so constantly draw upon in their usual discourse that it is difficult for me to follow them in their conversation, even though I have a deep knowledge [je possédé à fond] of the common tongue of India, called Moors by the English, and Ourdouzebain by the natives of the land.

In India, he had two Indian wives, Jugnu and Zinat,[5] one senior and one junior and three (or possibly, four) children who were all baptized in Calcutta. He acquired a large art collection and became rich working for the Indian royalty. In 1788 he left his Indian wives with his loyal companion and fellow enlightened adventurer, Claude Martin.[5] and settled in France with an unfortunate timing as he arrived in time for the French revolution. Having purchased a chateau and taking a French wife and two children, Charles de Polier and Adolphe de Polier. He was assassinated in Avignon on February 9, 1795, in the terror that followed the French revolution.[6]

Legacy

Polier's Mythology of the Hindus was edited by his cousin, Marie-Elisabeth Polier, for posthumous publication. Polier, who felt he had lost the ability to express himself easily in French or English as a result of his travels, dictated an autobiographical preface to her.[7] Sanjay Subrahmanyam has suggested that her lack of knowledge of Indian geography may have introduced inconsistencies into the text.[8] He was one of the first English writers on the Sikhs, in 1776 and 1780.[9][10] A further work of his on the Sikhs co-authored with George Forster was published in 1803.[11]

Polier collected Indian miniatures and calligraphy and is considered as an "unparalleled figure" among collectors of muraqqas during the second half of the 18th-century. The more than 30 volumes of Indian paintings assembled for him are known as Polier albums and are today kept in museums around the globe.[12]

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. "Antoine-Louis-Henri de Polier (1741-1795)". Bibliothèque nationale de France. Retrieved 2022-09-23.
  2. Maya Jasanoff, 'Edge of Empire: Conquest and Collecting on the Eastern Frontiers of the British Empire, 1750-1850' Fourth Estate
  3. "बिबीयापुर कोठी: अवध का भूला दिया गया नगीना". hindi.livehistoryindia.com (in Hindi). Retrieved 2021-01-13.
  4. Sanjay Subrahmanyam (2017). Europe's India: Words, People, Empires, 1500–1800. Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674977556.
  5. Martin, Claude (2003). A Man of the Enlightenment in 18th Century India: The Letters of Claude Martin, 1766-1800. Orient Blackswan. ISBN 9788178240428. Retrieved 2007-05-17.
  6. William Dalrymple 'Antoines Junior Bibi' Sept 27 2002 Timesonline accessed July 2007
  7. Banerjee, Sanjukta (2013). Reading against the grain: translation of India in eighteenth and nineteenth century French travel accounts (PDF) (MA). York University. p. 99. Retrieved 15 September 2022.
  8. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (April 2000). "The Career of Colonel Polier and Late Eighteenth-Century Orientalism". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 10 (1): 43–60. doi:10.1017/S1356186300011937. S2CID 162564832.
  9. Singh, Ganda (26 November 2018). "Seeks and Their College at Patna by Sir Charles Wilkins – Review by Dr Ganda Singh". patshahi10. Retrieved 23 March 2026. This is the first known account of the Sikh institutions written by an Englishman, the only other accounts in English of any importance written before this being from the pen of a French-Swiss gentleman Major (afterwards Colonel) Antonie Louis Henri Polier (1741-1795) written in 1780 as a memoir, and in 1776 in his letter of May 22 from Delhi to Colonel Ironside at Belgram.
  10. Singh Madra, A., Singh, P. (2004). The Writings of Colonel Polier on the Sikhs, 1776–1802. In: Madra, A.S., Singh, P. (eds) “Sicques, Tigers, or Thieves”: Eyewitness Accounts of the Sikhs (1606–1809). Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11998-8_8. Retrieved on 15 August 2026 via: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-137-11998-8_8
  11. A Character of the Sieks. From the Observations of Colonel Polier and Mr. Forster. (1803). [A Character of the Sikhs, from the Observations of Colonel Polier and Mr. Forster] – Also included is: An Account of the Jauts. [An Account of the Jats]. Published in: The Asiatic Annual Register, Or, A View of the History of Hindustan, and of the Politics, Commerce and Literature of Asia, Volume 4 - Section titled "Characters", pp. 9–15, Lawrence Dundas Campbell, E. Samuel, J. Debrett, Picadilly, 1803
  12. Weis, Friederike (2025). "To Be Viewed from Both Ends: The Surviving Polier Albums". In Weis, Friederike (ed.). Eighteenth-Century Indian Muraqqaʿs: Audiences, Artists, Patrons and Collectors. Islamic Manuscripts and Books. Vol. 23. Leiden: Brill. pp. 143–186. doi:10.1163/9789004715837. ISBN 978-90-04-71578-3.

Further reading

  • A European Experience of the Mughal Orient: The I'jaz-i Arsalani (Persian Letters, 1773–1779) of Antoine-Louis-Henri Polier - Translated with an introduction by Muzaffar Alam and Seema Alavi. Pub.Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-564980-X
  • Jean-Marie Lafont, Indika. Essays in Indo-French Relations 1630-1976. New Delhi 2000. [An extremely useful book outlining French activities in India during Polier's time] ISBN 81-7304 278 0