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urner responded quickly to the popular
demand for images of Seringapatam in the years immediately
after Tipu's death. Turner never visited India, but could
have seen in London the contemporary sketches and watercolours
of soldiers and military artists, like Alexander
Allan, returned from Seringapatam. Turner's subject
is the formidable masonry defences of Seringapatam,
but the treatment, with broad, flat washes to capture the
play of light on form and mass, is very different from that
of a topographical artist. An elaborate study for the 'Siege
of Seringapatam,' similar in composition to a watercolour
by Allan, is known to have been
in Turner's studio at his death.
Turner's other views in this series, 'Hoollay
Deedy or new Sally-port in the inner rampart of Seringapatam,
where Tippoo Sultaun was killed, on the 4th May 1799 ';
'Residence of the Mysore Rajah within the fort of Seringapatam,
during the last three years of his confinement,' and 'The
Siege of Seringapatam,' were formerly attributed to William
Daniell. It is possible that they may have been commissioned
by the great antiquarian, William Beckford, at Fonthill
where Turner stayed during the summer of 1799 to record
building work in progress. Beckford occupied the house from
1807, and it was completed in 1812. Beckford displayed in
the Grand Salon a splendid jade hookah, once owned by Tipu.
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