Plan of the Position of the Confederate Armies under the direction of Earl Cornwallis before Seringapatam from the 5th to the 24th February 1792 when the Cessation of Hostilities took place

1792

Copper engraving on paper

Print size: 27.25 x 24.5 in (69 x 62 cm)
Sheet size: 32 x 25.5 in (81 x 65 cm)

Robert Home’s important 1792 battle-plan showing the allied British–Maratha–Hyderabadi encirclement of Tipu Sultan’s forces before Seringapatam - a foundational visual record of the Third Mysore War

This engraved plan is among the key visual documents of the 3rd Mysore War 1791-1792. Robert Home, appointed as an official campaign artist to Lord Cornwallis, accompanied the army in the field and produced both large-scale paintings and carefully observed plans of the principal engagements. This sheet depicts the combined positions of the British, Maratha and Hyderabadi contingents encircling the island fortress of Seringapatam on the Kaveri River during the 1792 operations. The plan typically shows the fortified island, the principal batteries and redoubts, the allied encampments and lines of approach, together with the surrounding river channels and topography. This map records the moment at which Tipu Sultan, under intense military pressure, was forced into the negotiations that resulted in the Treaty of Seringapatam, ceding territory and hostages and marking a decisive check to Mysorean ambition. As a visual summary of the allied coalition’s strength and disposition, Home’s plan is of exceptional interest. It combines the accuracy expected of a staff-level military plan with the compositional intelligence of an artist who would later become well known for his painted scenes of the same campaign. In the context of the Deccan section, this lot forms a key bridge between textual history, cartographic representation and the lived experience of late eighteenth-century warfare in Southern India.

Named for its great Ranganathaswamy Temple, Srirangapatna—rendered by the British as Seringapatam—served as the capital of Tipu Sultan’s Mysore. Situated on an island in the Cauvery River, the city’s naturally defensible position provided strong protection against sudden assault and made it one of the most strategically important fortified centres in southern India.

During the late eighteenth century, the Mysore rulers Haidar Ali (r. 1761–1782) and his son Tipu Sultan (r. 1782–1799) fought a succession of major conflicts with the British for control of the peninsula. Seringapatam became the focal point of this struggle and the site of the two most celebrated sieges of the Anglo-Mysore Wars.

This plan records the British line of advance and route of attack during the siege of 1792, a decisive moment in the contest for southern India.

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