Overall: 58cm (22.8in) x 76cm (30in) x 4cm (1.5in)
Toleware. Hand painted after Mather Brown’s ‘The Delivery of the Definitive Treaty into the Hands of Lord Cornwallis’ that was popularised by a 1793 stipple engraving by Daniel Orme.
Following Lord Cornwallis’s capture of Seringapatam in 1792, the Indian ruler Tipu Sultan was forced to pay for his miscalculation over the Third Mysore War by ceding half his territories and a huge war indemnity of three crores and thirty lakhs rupees. To ensure the obligation was fulfilled, two of his sons, Abdul Khaliq, aged ten, and Muis-ud-Din, aged eight, were delivered to Cornwallis as hostages. Tipu Sultan paid the amount in two instalments and his sons were returned from Madras.