ike the companion portrait of her husband,
this piece was given to Haidar Ali on the occasion of Louis XVI
coronation. Both plaques were found in Tipu's palace at the fall
of Seringapatam, and preserved by a Company servant, John Rice,
in whose family they remained until their acquisition by the India
Office Library (now the British Library, Oriental and India Office
Collections).
The French courtiers were somewhat contemptuous of Tipu's
ambassadors, but the Queen was
fascinated by these 'turqueries..' and hoped to obtain a
wax portrait of them to decorate the rustic cottage in which
she and her ladies amused themselves, playing at being milkmaids.
No surviving wax portrait is known, but a splendid oil portrait
of Mohammed Dervich Khan, by Mme Vig�e Lebrun, shows a tall,
imposing figure, clad in elegant muslin, richly embroidered,
an exotic figure which Mme Vig�e Lebrun herself describes
in her Memoirs: 'They (Mohammed Dervich Khan and his son)
were both dressed in gowns of white muslin, embroidered
with gold flowers �.a kind of tunic with large sleeves folded
back �..fastened at the waist with richly decorated belts.'
Paris was fascinated by these Indian visitors, and their
visit was recorded by two of the artists who worked at the
royal porcelain factory at S�vres, Asselin
and Wattier, both of whom no doubt
anticipated that there would be a fashionable demand for
images of the orientals. The visit certainly inspired the
decoration of two charming S�vres tea-cups: inscribed portraits
of the ambassadors are set in circular reserves on the cup;
their 'hubble-bubble' pipes are depicted, like an exotic
still-life, in the reserves on the saucers.
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