The Action of Bareilly by Lt Gen Henry Hope Crealock – £9000 at Olympia Auctions.
Painted by Lt Gen Henry Hope Crealock (1831-91), this 6ft 8in (2m) wide pen and ink drawing is an eyewitness account of The Action of Bareilly – the battle of the last stronghold of Indian independence in 1858.
Crealock made sketches throughout his time in the army. Indeed, his scenes of the First Indian War of Independence, Anglo-Chinese war and the Anglo-Zulu war are regarded as valuable, painstaking records of these events. They rarely appear at auction although in May 2006 two pen-and-ink drawings depicting the Indian campaign of Trans-Gogra sold at Bonhams in London for £6600 (with fees).