obert Ker Porter was one of the first artists to celebrate
the British victory at Seringapatam,
although he had never visited India. His vast painting,
a panorama covering 2,550 square feet of canvas, was painted
in six weeks, when the artist was only twenty-three. A correspondent
to The Athenaeum of 1843, recalled that 'within six weeks
after he had listened to its details, he suddenly astonished
the people of London, by presenting the whole scene on a
spread of canvas of one hundred and twenty feet, in the
Great Room at the Lyceum.'
It was in Edinburgh that the
first 360º panorama, Robert Barker's 'Panoramic View
from Calton Hill,' 25 feet in diameter, had been constructed
in 1789, and a watercolour by Charles Halkerston,'Princes
Street from the Mound' painted in 1843, shows the 'Panorama'
building on the rising ground South of the Royal Scottish
Academy and the site of the present National
Galleries of Scotland. Ker Porter had studied in Edinburgh
before moving, in 1790, to London, where his panorama, 21feet
high, and 120 feet long was painted. It was exhibited in
situ, at The Lyceum Theatre in the Strand, from 17th April
1800 to 10th January 1801, and was accompanied by a printed
key and a pocket-sized companion guide: 'Narrative Sketches
of the Conquest of the Mysore' which contained a 'Descriptive
Sketch of the Storming of Seringapatam, as exhibited in
The Great Historical Picture, painted by Robert Ker Porter.'
The President of the Royal Academy in London , Benjamin
West, described the panorama as a 'wonder of the World …painted
by that boy Ker Porter in six weeks and as admirably done
as it could have been by the best historical painter among
us in as many months.' Ker Porter's sister, Jane, wrote
enthusiastically that the picture was 'all fire, energy,
intelligence and animation. You looked a second time, and
the figures moved, and were commingled in hot and bloody
fight. You saw the flash of the cannon, the glitter of the
bayonet, the gleam of the falchion. You longed to be leaping
from crag to crag with Sir David Baird who is hallooing
his men on to victory! Then, again, you seemed to be listening
to the groans of the wounded and the dying - and more than
one woman was carried out swooning.'
After its rapturous reception in London, the panorama then
toured the British Isles. The Edinburgh Evening Courant
of 5th May 1801 announced : 'The Public are respectfully
informed this wonderful production of art, which has been
the admiration and astonishment of the Metropolis of England
for these last twelve months, is now open for public inspection
in a Temporary Building erected for that purpose, North
Side of the New College every day (Sunday excepted) during
its short stay in Edinburgh (Admittance One Shilling).
This Painting is designed from the most correct information
relative to the scenery of the place, the costume of the
soldiery, and the various circumstances of the attack; it
is executed by that celebrated young artist, Robert Ker
Porter, upon a scale comprehending 2550 square feet of canvas,
and contains several hundred Figures as large as Life, with
Portraits of the British officers, an explanatory description
of which will be given at the place of the exhibition.'
The panorama includes, on the left skyline, Tipu's palace,
with the Sultan and his French commander, Chapuy, visible
on the battlements.
Unfortunately, while he was preparing for his first exhibition,
Ker Porter consigned the original panorama to storage in
a friend's warehouse, where it was unhappily destroyed in
a fire that consumed the premises.' A smaller version, one
of Ker Porter's 'original sketches,' was displayed at the
Royal Scottish Academy Galleries, in Edinburgh, in the Naval
and Military Exhibition of 1889, and in 1999 in 'The Tiger
and the Thistle' exhibition..
