Lot Essay
This hitherto unrecorded drawing seems to represent a late stage in the evolution of the composition of Wilkie's famous painting, completed in 1838 and now at Newbattle Abbey. For a full account of the painting and its preliminary studies see A. Cunningham, The Life of Sir David Wilkie, 1843, vol. III, p. 92 ff, and D.B. Brown, Sir David Wilkie: Drawings and Sketches in the Ashmolean Museum, exhibition catalogue, Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum, and London, Marten and Morris and Company Ltd., July-December 1985, under nos. 50-55, the painting and six sketches repr.
Wilkie's painting was commissioned by Lady Baird, wider of General Sir David, in 1834 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839 with a large description of the subject. Tipu Sahib, son and successor to Haidar Ali, ruler of Mysore, had resisted the British is the second, third and fourth and final Mysore Wars. The last ended on 4 May 1799 when the British stormed Tipu's capital city Seringapatan, sending in a play of truce and promising to protect Tipu should he surrender. He was however dead, and his body was discovered under a heap of other bodies.
Wilkie took great pains with the composition of this work, writing on 29 December 1834 to Lady Baird, 'The drawings I am proceeding with, trying changes and re-arrangements in the details of the group, or, what is more the case, trying to give form and shape to what in the first sketch was vague and confused (Cunningham, loc. cit.). The sketches are both of the whole composition and of individual figures and groups, and besides there at Oxford there examples in the National Gallery of Scotland, the ?Royal Scottish Academy, Harvard University and elsewhere. ? including those sold Christie's 20 March 1990, lot 133. This watercolour is amove worked up version of the ink sketch at Oxford (Brown, op. cit., no. 52) close to the oil but with the drum still to be seen upright, behind Baird's left by, rather than tilted between his legs
Wilkie's painting was commissioned by Lady Baird, wider of General Sir David, in 1834 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839 with a large description of the subject. Tipu Sahib, son and successor to Haidar Ali, ruler of Mysore, had resisted the British is the second, third and fourth and final Mysore Wars. The last ended on 4 May 1799 when the British stormed Tipu's capital city Seringapatan, sending in a play of truce and promising to protect Tipu should he surrender. He was however dead, and his body was discovered under a heap of other bodies.
Wilkie took great pains with the composition of this work, writing on 29 December 1834 to Lady Baird, 'The drawings I am proceeding with, trying changes and re-arrangements in the details of the group, or, what is more the case, trying to give form and shape to what in the first sketch was vague and confused (Cunningham, loc. cit.). The sketches are both of the whole composition and of individual figures and groups, and besides there at Oxford there examples in the National Gallery of Scotland, the ?Royal Scottish Academy, Harvard University and elsewhere. ? including those sold Christie's 20 March 1990, lot 133. This watercolour is amove worked up version of the ink sketch at Oxford (Brown, op. cit., no. 52) close to the oil but with the drum still to be seen upright, behind Baird's left by, rather than tilted between his legs