Mrs Waller, 1842 (colour litho)

Mrs Waller, 1842. Coloured lithograph after Lieutenant Vincent Eyre, Bengal Artillery, 1842 (c). Annie Waller was taken hostage with her husband, Captain Robert Waller, Bengal Horse Artillery, and their daughter Selina, on 9 January 1842, when Akbar Khan persuaded General Elphinstone to hand over several women, children and wounded officers in return for supplies and a safe escort for his army. They were taken to the fort at Tazeen and then Kabul. The Wallers were released on 21 September 1842 after the Army of Retribution reached the Afghan capital. From ‘Portraits of the Kabul Prisoners’, a set of pre-publication coloured lithographs later published by John Murray in 1843. The artist’s original drawings were made during his captivity in Afghanistan after the Retreat from Kabul during the 1st Afghan War (1838-1842).