Signed l.r.: Sir D.Wilkie

Pen and sepia ink, 12.5 by 14 cm

Tipu Sultan, who is often referred to as the Tiger of Mysore (or Tippoo Sahib by the British in the late eighteenth and early ninenteenth centuries) is hailed today by many modern Indians as one of the most heroic freedom fighters in the battle against India’s colonisation by the British. Strongly resisting the conquest of Southern India by the East India Company, he brutally met his end following the siege of Mysore by the British in May 1799. The event was an early moment in the unstoppable rise of Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington). Commissioned in 1839, Wilkie’s depiction of the event The Discovery of the Body of Sultan Tippoo Sahib is one of the artist’s best known and most monumental works. It is also one of the most famous works from this period in the National Galleries of Scotland.  Commissioned by the widow of Sir David Baird following his death it shows him discovering Tipu Sultan’s body in an attempt to re-address history by putting her husband and not the (by now) Duke of Wellington more firmly at the heart of the historic event.