West View of Seringapatam from the Middle of the River

Robert Home was a professional portrait painter who arrived in Madras in 1791 and spent the rest of his long life in India. Appointed as the official artist of the Third Mysore War, he accompanied the armies under Cornwallis at the sieges of Bangalore and Srirangapatna, and was an eye-witness to the surrender of the hostage princes in 1792, an event which he depicted. Besides portraits of senior military personnel, he produced views of the theatres of war and other landscapes. Twenty-nine of these views were engraved and published by Robert Bowyer in 1794 as Select Views in Mysore, with an accompanying text by T. Bensley. Those displayed here depict the forts of Bangalore and Srirangapatna.