A head and shoulders portrait of Raja Tulyaji Bhonsle of Tanjore (reg. 1765-87) Company School, Tanjore, circa 1800
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Find your local specialistA head and shoulders portrait of Raja Tulyaji Bhonsle of Tanjore (reg. 1765-87)
Company School, Tanjore, circa 1800
Company School, Tanjore, circa 1800
miniature 60 mm. high; frame 135 x 120 mm.
Footnotes
Provenance:
Private collection, Sussex.
This portrait bears a close resemblance to one in the British Library, dated 1780 (though the date is thought to refer to that of the original by George Willison.) The Clives and their Italian governess, Anna Tonelli, visited Tanjore in 1798 and Tonelli painted both Raja Tulyaji and his son Raja Sarabhoji. It is possible that this miniature and the one in the British Library are by Tonelli, copying an original by Willison.
Raja Tulyaji (known as Tulsajee by the British) was removed as ruler of Tanjore in 1773 by Muhammad 'Ali Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic, with the assistance of the British, but was reinstated in 1776 by the new Governor of Madras, Lord Pigot. The following year, when Pigot died, Tulyaji commissioned a portrait of him by George Willison, who was in Madras from 1774 to 1780.