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The disputed image is the full-length painting displayed at Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace in Srirangapatna and captioned there as a portrait of Tipu by Johan Zoffany. In a 2021 article, Harshavardhana Yadumurthy argues that the sitter is not Tipu but may be Salar Jung. That identification is a proposal, not an established scholarly consensus. It is also a different object from the better-known half-length portrait associated with G.F. Cherry.
Which portrait is in dispute?
Yadumurthy’s challenge concerns a full-length painting displayed at Dariya Daulat, Tipu Sultan’s summer palace in Srirangapatna. The museum caption attributed it to Johan Zoffany and dated it to 1780. The question is not whether every portrait labelled as Tipu shows someone else; it is whether this particular full-length figure has been correctly identified.
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteThe distinction matters because images can acquire authority through captions and repetition. A label records an attribution, but the attribution still has to be weighed against the painting’s appearance, the history of the object, and whether the sitter could have been at the event or place associated with the image.
Why Yadumurthy questions the Zoffany attribution
Yadumurthy argues that the full-length portrait’s direct gaze, still pose and relatively simple setting do not match the style he associates with Zoffany. He also notes that Zoffany is not documented as having visited Mysore or Srirangapatna. These points challenge the attribution; on their own, they do not prove who painted the work or who sat for it.
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How the comparison with Tilly Kettle changes the identification
The article’s more specific clue is a visual comparison with a figure in Tilly Kettle’s Emperor Shah Alam reviewing the 3rd brigade of the East India Company’s troops at Allahabad, painted around 1781. Yadumurthy points to similarities in the figure’s appearance and clothing.
Tipu was not present at the Allahabad review. Yadumurthy therefore reasons that if the figures correspond, the person shown in Kettle’s scene cannot be Tipu—and the similar sitter in the summer-palace portrait may not be him either. This is an argument built from comparison and historical context, rather than a documented identification of the sitter.
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Who does the article propose is shown?
Yadumurthy proposes Salar Jung, described in the article as the brother-in-law of Shuja-ud-Daula. The proposal offers an alternative identity for the figure, but the material cited does not establish it as fact or show that museums and scholars have accepted it. The author presents the identification as requiring a fuller account.
The half-length portrait is a separate object
The familiar half-length image associated with G.F. Cherry should not be merged with the disputed full-length painting. The British Library catalogue record Foster 28 describes a half-length portrait dated 1792 and formerly attributed to F. Cherry. It transcribes a note dated 1 November 1854 and signed by Tipu’s son, Prince Ghulam Muhammad, which says Cherry gave the portrait to Tipu’s mother during his mission to Seringapatam in 1792.
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The inscription, as transcribed by the Library, reads: “This portrait of Tippoo Sultan was painted by Mr. Cherry, Lord Cornwallis’s Persian Secretary, who was afterwards assassinated, at Benares, by Vezeer Alie, and was by Mr. Cherry himself presented to the Begum, Mother of the Sultan, during his Mission to Seringapatam in 1792. Ghulam Mohumed.” This is evidence of what the recorded inscription says, not independent verification of every detail in it.
The British Library does not endorse the Cherry attribution without reservation. Its catalogue says it is “in fact impossible” for the painting to be by a European and suggests it was presumably made by a Madras artist trained in oils. The record also distinguishes the Library’s portrait from a duplicate, later in the Duke of Wellington’s collection and presented to the Government of India in 1957, which is now at the Tipu Sultan Museum in the Summer Palace. That record does not establish that every portrait displayed at the museum is the same object or has the same attribution.
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What the two portraits can—and cannot—tell us
| Feature | Full-length Summer Palace portrait | British Library Foster 28 portrait |
|---|---|---|
| Composition | Full-length; the museum caption described in Yadumurthy’s article dates it to 1780 and attributes it to Zoffany. | Half-length; the British Library catalogue dates it to 1792. |
| Attribution | Zoffany is the museum’s reported attribution; Yadumurthy questions it. The available description does not identify a confirmed painter. | Formerly attributed to F. Cherry; the British Library questions European authorship and suggests a Madras-trained artist. |
| Sitter identification | Yadumurthy argues the sitter is not Tipu and proposes Salar Jung; this remains a hypothesis. | The catalogue record identifies the portrait as Tipu and notes an inscription linking it to his family. |
| Object relationship | The work under discussion at the Summer Palace; do not assume it is the same as other portraits there. | The Library records a separate duplicate now at the Tipu Sultan Museum in the Summer Palace. |
The comparison shows why a portrait’s identity, maker and provenance should be assessed object by object. The full-length work’s proposed identification rests on visual and historical reasoning; the half-length work has a family-associated inscription recorded in a later catalogue, alongside a disputed attribution of authorship.
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Sources
- Harshavardhana Yadumurthy, “I looked closely at two famous portraits of Tipu Sultan – and found that one isn’t actually of him,” Scroll.in, 20 November 2021.
- British Library catalogue record Foster 28.
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