The Last Effort and Fall of Tipu Sultan

This coloured engraving by Rogers, after a large scale history painting by Henry Singleton, is a dramatic depiction of the East India Company’s final storming and capture of Seringapatam, the fortified capital of Tipu Sultan, Mysore ruler and bitter opponent of British imperialism, in May 1799. In the main image, British and Mysorean forces are seen in the midst of pitched battle, with uniformed British soldiers aggressively charging at the Mysore army led by Tipu, who is on the defensive, depicted, quite literally, on the back foot. Tipu’s fight to his death and the fall of Seringapatam in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war would inspire several British artists to create works celebrating this crucial victory. Underneath, a smaller image recalls Tipu’s surrender to the British in 1792, when his two sons were taken hostage by Lieutenant-General Lord Cornwallis, Governor-General of India. Inscription Recto “Tippoo’s sons given to the English as hostages.”