Posted on: 7 January 2016

Sir Charles Warre Malet, Concluding a Treaty in 1790 in Durbar with the Peshwa of the Maratha Empire
by Thomas Daniell

Date painted: 1805
Oil on canvas, 181 x 279.4 cm

Malet, of the East India Company, presents a scroll to the Peshwa Madhavrao II, formalising an alliance against another Indian ruler, Tipu Sultan of Mysore. The painting was commissioned by Malet to commemorate his role in the treaty and the ultimate defeat of Tipu Sultan.

Daniell completed this work after the death in 1795 of James Wales, the Scottish artist who received the original commission from Malet. Daniell painted it in England, but had travelled extensively in India. His delight in Indian subjects is evident in the statues of Ganesh and Vishnu, the painted frieze, costumes and architecture.

Text and image credit:
Tate Gallery, London


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I have several of his aquatints frim the same period.

Sanket Raut

Aquatint published by R. Cribb in 1807 and part of King George III's Topographical Collection. View of the court of the young Maratha ruler, the Peshwa Sawai Madhavrao, who is sitting on a cushion throne in the Durbar Hall of the Shaniwarwada Palace at Poona (Pune). Sawai Madhavrao (b.1774-d.1795) is wearing a typical Maratha turban which has a jewelled sarpesh (an ornament worn by rulers on their turban). The person in European costume is Sir Charles Warre Malet (1752-1815) of the East India Company, who in 1785 was made British Resident at the Court of the Peshwa in Poona. Here he has just concluded an alliance with the Marathas against Tipu Sultan, which was signed on 6th August in 1790. The 17th and the 18th centuries saw the rise of the Maratha chieftains of the Deccan. The Peshwas were originally ministers of the Maratha rulers, but the position became hereditary and they began to wield the power, with their seat in Poona. The Shaniwarwada Palace, built in about 1736, was burned down under unknown circumstances in 1827. Only its outer walls and main entrance gate remain. Text and image credit: Copyright © The British Library Board

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