A pair of mirrored silver-mounted flintlock pistols made for Tipu Sultan, by Asad Amin, India, Seringapatam, dated Mawludi 1223 (1794-95 AD)

Robin Wigington, Stratford-upon-Avon, by 1982

Sotheby's, London, 25 May 2005, lot 9

Bonhams, London, 21 April 2015, lot 147

The Indian Heritage, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1982

Skelton, Robert, et al., The Indian Heritage, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1982, no.463, p.139.

Robin Wigington, The Firearms of Tipu Sultan 1783-1799, Hatfield, 1992, pp.109-111.

inscriptions

On the barrels, in mirror form, in the image of a tiger face: asad allah al-ghalib, 'the victorious lion of God'

On the barrels, by the breech: Patan, saneh 1223 / Asad Amin / karkhaneh-ye huzur, 'Seringapatan, the year 1223 (1794-95 AD)/ Asad Amin / the royal workshop'

Along the length of the barrel: tofang-e bi-nazir-e khosraw-e hend / ke bashad barq-e suzan thani-ye u tavanad sar-nevesht-e khasm bar-dasht / hadaf gardad agar pishani-ye u, 'the peerless gun of the Khusraw of India / to which the forked lightning is second, can seal the fate of the enemy / if [their] forehead is made the target

On the tang: 313 / tir 06 M, '313, shot 06 M'

On the lock: Patan, saneh 1223 / Asad Amin, 'Seringapatan, the year 1223 (1794-95 AD)/ Asad Amin'

The present pair of pistols was made in Seringapatam, the capital of the de facto rulers of Mysore Haydar 'Ali (r.1761-82) and Tipu Sultan (r.1782-99). Tipu Sultan's royal armoury (karkhaneh-ye huzur) employed highly skilled gunsmiths who worked at the cutting edge of late eighteenth-century firearms technology, and their signatures are found on all of Tipu Sultan's finest firearms. In addition to their exceptional technical qualities, Tipu Sultan's firearms are a tour de force of artistry in steel and gold. Tipu Sultan's striking visual language, centred on the ubiquitous image of the tiger and his stripes (bubri), is brought out to full effect in these firearms.

Following the siege of Seringapatam by the East India Company on May 4, 1799, during which Tipu Sultan was killed, his prized possessions, including his firearms, were looted and taken to Britain. Such was Tipu Sultan's interested in firearms manufacturing that the Royal and Public armouries at Seringapatam after his fall in 1799 contained 99,000 locally manufactured flintlock firearms which were locally manufactured in the royal and public armouries of Tipu Sultan (Masood 2019, p.108).

An unusual aspect of Tipu Sultan's pistols is that they are often made mirrored, as here, one with a left-hand lock and the other with a right-hand lock. This combination appears to have been preferred by Tipu Sultan, and they appeared among his other trappings of state when he presided over his public audiences (Wigington 1992, p.34). A gold-inlaid gun barrel signed by Asad Amin and dated Mawludi 1220/1791-92 AD was recently on display at the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha (inv. no.MW.606). A further pistol by Asad Amin, dated three years later, is in the collection of the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, and exhibited in the recent exhibition More Than a Day as a Tiger (6 August 2025 - 11 January 2026); see Lucien de Guise (ed.), More Than a Day as a Tiger, IAMM, Kuala Lumpur, 2025, pp.220-1).