Antoine Polier
Encyclopedia
Colonel Antoine-Louis Henri de Polier (1741–1795) was a Swiss adventurer, art collector, military engineer and soldier who made his fortune in India in the eighteenth century.

Early life


Image:PolierMartinWombwellZoffany.jpg|thumb|200px|Antoine Polier, General Claude Martin, John Wombwell, assay master, and Johann Zoffany, the painter, surrounded by servants and Polier's art collection.
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Claude Martin
Major General Claude Martin was an officer in the French, and later the British, army in India. He rose to the position of Major General in the British East India Company...


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Antoine Polier
Colonel Antoine-Louis Henri de Polier was a Swiss adventurer, art collector, military engineer and soldier who made his fortune in India in the eighteenth century.-Early life:...


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Johann Zoffany
Johan Zoffany, Zoffani or Zauffelij was a German neoclassical painter, active mainly in England...


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Antoine-Louis was born in Lausanne from a French Huguenot family, with a French mother tongue, he later learned Hindustani and Persian.

Antoine Polier was an engineer from Lausanne who fought with Robert Clive and became a rich trader. He devoted his free moments to collecting manuscripts in Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic.

In India, he had two Indian wives, Jugnu and Zinat, one senior and one junior and three children. He acquired a large art collection and became rich working for the Indian royalty. In 1788 he left his Indian wives with Claude Martin 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 he got 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.

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
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