Description

This sketch is done on tracing paper and is similar to a 1872 oil on canvas Portrait of Tipu Sultan, painted by G.F. Cherry at Dariya Daulat in Srirangapatna, once owned by Richard Colley Wellsley, now in the care of the British Library (Foster28). It is also similar to a painting done by an Indian artist in Mysore now in the V&A collection (IS.266-1952). There seems to be multiple versions of this composition. The inscription on the work, in what seems like a 19th-century hand, says the sketch is a tracing of an original work. The presence of the balustrade and its smaller size suggests it is closer to the V&A work, a miniature painting done by an Indian artist. But the tracing is not identical, suggesting another "original" as well. It is possible there were many portraits of Tipu made during his lifetime and after to commemorate the British victory over him. But it remains unclear, under what circumstances and for what purpose this tracing was made.

In the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, the forces of the British East India Company, supported by the Marathas and the Nizam of Hyderabad, defeated Tipu and he was killed on 4 May 1799 while defending his fort of Srirangapatna. According to William Dalrymple, by the late 1790s, the British launched a campaign of character assassination against the Tiger of Mysore. After the battle in which Tipu was killed, many pieces from his palace were carried off as booty, include the life-size music box of a tiger attacking a British sepoy, now in the V&A Museum.