Harry Sheldon Original Watercolour St. Pauls 21"x16" Collectable Art Gift

Auchinleck, whose distinguished family had played a leading role in Scottish history for more than 200 years, had the rank of General at the time and C-in-C India. He was impressed by an unofficial exhibition of war art that Lt Harry Sheldon, 8th Gurkha Rifles, Indian Army, had mounted there and persuaded him to remain behind and become his official war artist.

Sheldon, however, had another claim to fame: Lord Louis MoIn peacetime, he exhibited frequently at the Royal Society of Painters in Watercolours and Royal Society of Portrait Painters. His one-man shows ranged from Delhi to Cairo to London. His work has been preserved for War Office records and other examples are in most British military museums. The Sheldon war-art legacy is assured for the nation. untbatten, Supremo, South-East Asia Command, had also been highly impressed with his work and had pleaded with "The Auk" for his services. This request was swiftly thwarted by Auchinleck, who saw it as a dangerous move by the Supremo to project further his charismatic frontline image. Many of the other generals in the theatre of war shared the same, jealous view.

More than half a century after the event, Sheldon, who left the services as a captain and was elected FRSA in 1953, still treasured the original letter from Mountbatten pleading for his services for his own command.