Overall: 15.8cm (6.2in) x 14cm (5.5in)
Engraved paper bookpate of Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, KB, FRS. Arms: on a fess three mullets, encircled by the insignia of the Order of the Bath with motto ‘Audacter et Sincere’ (Boldly and Sincerely) flanked by supporters in the form of a rearing elephant and rearing griffin; all beneath a baron’s coronet, and named in cartouche in the French rococo style, Robert, Lord Clive. Framed and glazed.
Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, KB, FRS (1725-1774) an orphan of minor gentry stock, went out to India as a clerk in the East India Company. On the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, he entered the army and won rapid promotion. In 1751 he captured Arcot, and in 1757, after the tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta, he defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah, at Plassey - the victory that led to the British supremacy in Bengal. On his return to England, condemnation of the methods he had used for acquiring his vast wealth resulted in his suicide from an overdose of laudanum.