Tipu Sultan artefacts are being sold in London next week at two different auctions: A second gem-encrusted gold finial from the Tiger of Mysore’s octagonal golden throne will be auctioned by Bonhams on October 7 in London. It is estimated that it will sell for £200,000 - 300,000.
A set of 24 paintings, which depict Tipu Sultan’s victory over the British at the Battle of Pollilur in 1780, estimated for £800,000 will be auctioned by Sotheby’s on October 6.
The Bonhams auction will also have a contemporary eyewitness account of the Siege of Seringapatam and the death of Tipu Sultan on sale for £10,000 - 15,000. The 24-page handwritten account from Seringapatam is by Captain Benjamin Sydenham in form of a letter dated May 25 1799 to George Macartney, 1st Earl Macartney.
Tipu Sultan, who died after being shot and bayoneted, had been “wounded a little above the right ear.” He had the “ball lodged in the left cheek and three wounds in the body,” according to the letter.
Sydenham wrote Tipu Sultan was about 5’8” tall, and not very fair, rather corpulent with a short neck and high shoulders. However, the Mysore ruler’s “wrists and ankles were small and delicate.” “He had large full eyes, with small arched eyebrows and very small whiskers. His appearance denoted him to be above the common stamp. And his countenance expressed a mixture of haughtiness and resolution. He was dressed in a fine white linen jacket, chintz drawers, a crimson cloth round his waist with a red silk belt and pouch across his body. He had lastly his turban and there were no weapons of defence about him,” Sydenham wrote about Tipu Sultan in his account.
The gold finial is the second such finial to pass through Bonhams saleroom in 18 months. The first one was auctioned here by Bonhams in April last year for £389,600.
“It is an extraordinary privilege to be selling a second such wonderful finial from Tipu Sultan’s throne. To sell one is amazing, but to have two in less than two years is almost unbelievable,” Claire Penhallurick of Bonhams Indian and Islamic department said.
The two finials are among the three surviving tiger-head finials that adorned Tipu’s elaborate throne.