File:The Indiaman 'Seringapatam' arriving home RMG BHC3633.tiff

Oil painting entitled 'The Indiaman "Seringapatam" arriving home'. An alternative title for this painting is 'Portrait of the "Seringapatam", picking up a pilot'. It has been suggested, though not conclusively, that the location may be in the mouth of the Thames off the North Foreland.

The vessel, built by Richard Green of Blackwall in 1837, initiated the last generation of East Indiamen. The principal improvement was the suppression of the coach and the lengthening of the quarter-deck to compensate for loss of passenger accommodation. The resulting design assumed the layout of a frigate and the 'Seringapatam' and those Indiamen that followed became known as 'Blackwall frigates'. The vessel was named after the siege and battle of 1798 by which the East India Company gained control over the south-west Indian state of Mysore, an area ruled by Tipu Sultan, who was killed in the action. The NMM also holds a full-hull ship model of the 'Seringapatam' (SLR0763) and at least one print (PAH9329). The painting shows her hove-to flying Green's pre-1843 house flag at the main and with the signal for a pilot (a Union flag with a white border) apparently being hauled down from the foremmast. He may have just gone aboad from the red-sailed cutter beating out of the picture plane. The painting is signed and dated 1839. For the artist, Butland, see also BHC3532.