NAOMI CANTON
LONDON: The “sword with the shiny blade”, believed to have been part of Tipu Sultan’s personal armoury and the provenance of which can be traced back to the Battle of Seringapatam, sold at Bonhams auction house for £317,900 (Rs 3.4 crore) on Tuesday.
The sword has an unbroken provenance taking it back to the 1799 battle in which Tipu Sultan met his end: it has been in the hands of the British family whose ancestor was given the sword for his service in the battle.
The “steel tulwar” has the Tiger of Mysore’s hallmark “bubri (tiger stripe)” decoration adorning the hilt and the Arabic letter “ha” inlaid in gold on the blade, a reference to Tipu’s father, Hyder Ali.
The sword was presented to Captain James Andrew Dick in recognition of his service at Seringapatam and remained in the Dick family until June 2024. Dick served as a lieutenant at Seringapatam in the 75th Highland Regiment of Foot. The regiment formed part of the storming party at the battle, their objective to breach the walls by use of ladders. Lt Dick is therefore likely to have been amongst the first of the British forces to enter the city, and it was his regiment that assisted with the search for Tipu’s body after the battle.
A silver-hilt Seringapatam medal belonging to Peter Cherry, who was present at the siege in the capacity of paymaster, which depicts a “British lion overcoming the tiger”, sold for £23,040 (Rs 24 lakh).
A report on the secret alliance between Tipu Sultan and the nawabs of the Carnatic, signed by N B Edmonstone, Persian translator to govt of Bengal, dated April 6, 1800, sold for £35,840 (Rs 38.6 lakh).
The Edmonstone document is a manuscript copy of the report to the govt of Bengal on the cache of correspondence between Tipu Sultan and his ministers which was found at Seringapatam after the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and is believed to reveal a secret alliance between Tipu Sultan and two successive nawabs of the Carnatic, Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah and Umdat al-Umara, who were notionally allied with the British. The findings were used to compel Umdat al-Umara’s successor, Azim ud-Daul, to sign the Carnatic Treaty, one of the treaties by which the British Empire acquired its rule over the Indian subcontinent.