Posted on: 28 July 2010

Views in Mysore. The Deria Dowlut in Seringapatam. Frescoes on wall. - 1868

Photograph from an album of 40 albumen prints by Edmund David Lyon. Karnataka has a long tradition of paintings used to decorate the walls of temples and palaces, although most surviving paintings date from the post-Vijayanagar era, after the 16th century. Srirangapatna, the seat of the Mysore Wodeyars who made it their capital in 1610, was a cultural centre and source of paintings. The tradition continued in the era of Haider Ali and Tipu Sultan who took over from the Wodeyars in the second half of the 18th century. The walls of Darya Daulat Bagh, the summer palace of Tipu Sultan, are covered with impressive paintings. On the west wall are portraits of Haider and Tipu and scenes from the second Anglo-Mysore war in which they were victorious over the British, and on the east wall are portraits of Tipu's contemporaries and scenes from everyday life. Lyon's 'Notes to Accompany a Series of Photographs Prepared to Illustrate the Ancient Architecture of Southern India' (Marion & Co., London, 1870), edited by James Fergusson, gives the following description: '[this] - shows the Paintings on the wall at the east side of the building. The subjects represent different scenes and ceremonies of Mussulman life, though in direct violation of the second commandment to which Mohammedans generally strictly adhere. These paintings are singularly interesting, as exhibiting, at the end of the eighteenth century, exactly the same mechanical stage of art as was reached by the Italians in the end of the thirteenth. The frescoes in the Arena chapel at Padua show exactly the same mode of dividing and depicting subjects, and the same imperfect notions of perspective, as here shown; though the sentiments in the two cases are very different'.

Source : British Library


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Good old picture. Taken about half century after Tipu's death.

been to this place...sad how little we take care of our heritage

seems, it is really great masterpiece...

Though it is known as Tipu's summer palace, there are no bathrooms in the building. In which case can it be his palace or his durbar hall?

Though it is known as Tipu's summer palace, there are no bathrooms in this building (or maybe they were demolished later). If none were built, then maybe the building was used as his durbar hall with smaller rooms around for break-away conference.......

This palace and other tipu sultans monuments are very very badly maintained by the ASI but they are collecting a lot of revenue, a lot of structures are going to fall may be in coming 10 years i am sure, i am a native of mysore and i am seeing this palace from my childhood, nowadays a lot of things are missing in Dariya Daulat Bagh dont know may be they are smuggled or what, when the centre is giving the money to maintain they are not at all used, and no one is taking charge to see what is going on, its a great dissappointment to see in a free india, very bad

In our country i feel very bad to see when it comes to save our heritage monuments they see whether it belongs to hindu, muslim, christian or other religion, its a shame, still in our hearts there is poison that divdes n kills each other, this is secular india

When tourist come to this summer palace they are given wrong picture by the illiterate and uneducated guides who dont deserve to be as guides in this place and in mysore palace there is lot of security but in srirangapatna no security and if it is there just for name sake and if some bad guy plants a bomb also no one can make out, dont knw when the mandya admin people wake up and take some concrete steps, God knows........

my friends just go towards the Gumbaz and when u go a half kilometre towards sangam u can see that there are two structures one fallen n one standing, these were build by tipu sultan for birds and they survived for 200+ years but now they have let water surrounding these structures and one fell down one going to fall may be within weeks or months, but no one is bothered--GREAT