Portrait of Abdul Khalik Sultan and Mu'izz Ud-Din Sultan; half-length to front, head slightly to right, eyes to front, wearing a turban with small spray of flowers, within an oval - 1794 

 

Inscriptions: 

Inscribed: "Abd ul Khalik Sultan (Youngest son) and Mu'izz Ud-Din Sultan, (Eldest son) of Tippu Sultan" and "John Smart delin. Madras, 1794" 

 

This highly finished pair of drawings by John Smart, the leading portrait miniaturist and draughtsman, made towards the end of his ten-year-long stay in Hindustan, represent the two sons of Tipu Sultan (1750-99), the ruler of Mysore, who was finally defeated by the British at Seringapatam on 4 May 1799. Five years earlier Smart had drawn the two boys in these finished graphite portraits; two years earlier in 1792 they had been taken hostage in the Treaty of Madras by the British led by Charles, 1st marquess Cornwallis, the governor-general and commander-in-chief in Hinsutan. Thomas Twining in his Travels in Hindustan (1893; cited in Foskett) wrote that he was introduced to the two young princes by Colonel Doveton of the Madras army on 8 August 1792 and described the encounter: ‘on our entering their rooms they seemed breakfasted, our names, and many other questions. There is not much difference in their size. 

 

The youngest Mirza, is most pleasing, He is fair, with large, handsome eyes. He was very cheerful and polite; talked a great deal to us, and very sensibly, though not eight years of age. When he heard that we should see Lord Cornwallis, he desired, with tears in his eyes, to be remembered to him. “Tell Lord Cornwallis that he always with me”.’ Twining continued his account with a description of the commission of these two portraits: ‘Mr Smart, miniature painter, who told me to my surprise that he had taken my mother’s picture, was taking their likenesses. They are to be sent when finished to Tipu Sahib; for Lord Cornwallis having asked them if he would like to have his sons’ pictures, “yes”, said he, “provided they be accompanied by Lord Cornwallis’s”.’