ilkie's memorandum on this portrait, commissioned by Baird's wife in 1834, reads: 'In considering the taking of Seringapatam a subject for art, one of its greatest recommendations I conceive to be, the bringing the leaders of each side in the moment of victory, to the same spot.' The painting shows Baird discovering Tipu's body on 4th May 1799 after the fall of Seringapatam. In May 1839, 40 years after that event, he painting was hung above the President's chair at the Royal Academy, London, and it was then placed on public display, accompanied by a detailed description of the scene, taken in part from Theodore Hook's biography:

'About dusk General Baird, in consequence of information he had received at the Palace, came with lights to the gate, accompanied by the late Killadar of the Fort, and others, to search for the body of the Sultaun; and after much labour it was found, and brought from under a heap of slain to the inside of the gate. The countenance was no way distorted; but had an expression of stern composure. His turban, jacket, and sword-belt were gone; but the body was recognised by some of his people who were there, to be the Sultaun.

General Baird, who is standing in the gateway under which Tippoo received his death-wound, is supposed to be giving orders that the body should be carried to the Palace; and below his feet, in the parapet wall, is a grating here introduced as giving light to the dungeon in which he had been for nearly four years immured by Haidar Ally and his son, the same Tippoo Sultaun, who, by a remarkable dispensation of Providence, he now finds prostrate at his feet, bereft of his crown, his kingdom, and his life.'

Wilkie's painting was the last significant monument in a great series: epic moments in the history of India, recorded by artists who had never visited that vast continent. The painting, and the handsome mezzotint published John Burnett in 1843, became one of the icons of the Mysore Wars.