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We have reliable information about Shivaji's personal appearance in 1664, when he was seen by some Englishmen at Surat. The chaplain Escaliot writes, "His person is described by them who have seen him to be of mean [= medium] stature, lower somewhat than I am erect, and of an excellent proportion. Actual [ = active] in exercise, [he] seems to smile, a quick and piercing eye, and whiter than any of his people." The cultured Frenchman Thevenot, who travelled in the Deccan from November 1665 to February 1667, says of him, "The Rajah is small [in size] and tawny [in complexion], with quick eyes which indicate abundance of spirit." It is a pity that neither the English factor of Rajapur whose wig Shivaji examined with his fingers in curiosity (March, 1675), nor Henry Oxinden, the English envoy present at Shivaji's coronation, has left any description of his personal appearance.

There is a contemporary and authentic portrait of Shivaji preserved in the British Museum, viz., MS. Add. 22,282 (Picture No. 12.) "It bears a Dutch inscription, 'Shivaji the late Maratha prince.' This volume of Indian portraits evidently belonged to some Dutch owner who had written the name of each person in Dutch on the portrait before 1707, as Aurangzib's portrait is inscribed, 'the present Great Mughal'... I should, therefore, say the portraits