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Detail of a Tiger Soldier with Mysore Musket in
‘The Reception of the Mysorean Hostage Princes by Marquis Cornwallis’
by Robert Home
National Army Museum in Chelsea, London
Here, I would like you to observe the man holding a firearm with a bayonet at the right end of the picture. He is someone who for 30 years put the fear of Mysorean arms into every English heart from Calacutta to the Carnatic. He is seen wearing a ‘tiger striped’ shirt with the typical ‘bubri’ marks on it. Tipu identified himself with the strength and ferocity of the Tiger and his factories had the exclusive license to manfacture cloth spun with the tiger stripe design. A specific order from him to his taluqdars, preserved in the Hyderabad archives, asks that 300 pieces of bubri striped cloth called ‘thaan bubri reshmin’ be sent each year to the royal presence without delay or excuse. Tipu’s tiger soldier is also seen holding on to a firearm, most probably a flintlock manufactured in Mysore. The quality of weaponry manufactured in Mysore was second to none in India and even matched the quality of European arms.
Source: toshkhana
‘The Reception of the Mysorean Hostage Princes by Marquis Cornwallis’, 26 February 1792.
Oil on canvas by Robert Home (1752-1834), c.1793.
Location: National Army Museum, Battle gallery
AM Accession Number: NAM. 1976-11-86-1
