Munro had also recently taken two of Tippoo’s sons as prisoners. This young man was none other than Sir Hector Munro’s son, the very same Hector Munro who had defeated Hyder Ali in the Second Anglo-Mysore War of 1780-1782 and killed him. This heartless image was reinforced by the fact that a young man had indeed just been devoured by an Indian tiger, causing a wave of emotion to sweep over England. If, by ordering this tiger-organ to be made for him, Tippoo was obviously following his own taste and endeavouring to live up to his legend, he was also adding to his aura as a ruthless tyrant with countless atrocities to his name, past and to come. All of this gained him the nickname of “The Tiger of Mysore”. He made obsessive use of them as ornaments for his furniture and weaponry and displayed live individuals caged in his zoos or chained against the walls of his palaces. Tippoo was universally known for his fetishistic attachment to tigers. With France and England almost constantly at war and the French Revolution raging, « Citizen Tippoo »’s appeal to the French may easily be construed as polemic. Tippoo’s consistent role as a champion of India’s liberty, the major part he played in the third Mysore war (1789-1792) and his death in the battle of Seringapatam in May 1799 gained him recognition as one of India’s outstanding war heroes, a position he still holds in today’s Bharathiya Janata Party’s (BJP ‘s) official propaganda. Seeking support from Revolutionary France, Tippoo had engaged in a regular correspondence with members of the French National Assembly, of which, as “Citizen Tippoo”, he became an honorary member. Tippoo had taken up the fight after his father’s death in 1782. Following the fall of the Mughal Empire, Tippoo’s father, Hyder Ali, had led the Indian rebellion against British rule during the Second Mysore War (1780 – 1784). Tippoo’s tiger has obvious political resonances. A handle causes air to blow through the pipes while the soldier raises one arm in alarm. A trap on one side of the animal gives access to a keyboard and pipes, transforming the object into a miniature grind organ. The tiger’s face expresses greediness and malice, the soldier’s, predictably, fear and sheer, albeit caricatured, horror. The sculpture itself, crude, clumsy and all but ludicrous, represents a British soldier, clad in an East India Company uniform lying supine with a tiger sprawling upon him. There it was seen by both William Blake and John Keats.Ī perfect « orientalist » contraption and an early example of globalization, the tiger was manufactured in 1793 by Indian craftsmen to accommodate a mechanism devised by a French toy mechanic and an organ of Dutch conception. When it did arrive in Britain in 1800, it was exhibited first in the Tower of London, and then in East India House, Leadenhall Street. The object enjoyed great popularity in its day, celebrated in penny broadsides, chapbooks and newspapers, so that its fame was well-established long before it reached England. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.īy clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set.Location: Victoria & Albert Museum, Londonĭescription: Now an exhibit at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Sultan Tippoo’s « Man-Tiger organ » is simultaneously an automaton, a sculpture in the Gothic taste, a musical instrument, an instance of popular craftsmanship in the spirit of the Enlightenment, and an elaborate practical joke. This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and On its frontispiece, a figure carrying a mysterious orb invites us through a door, as if into the poem, or towards death itself. Jerusalem is also Blake’s last prophetic book. Of the countless references in popular culture, the film Chariots of Fire wins for having borrowed as its title the poem’s most uplifting phrase. A radical Christian, Blake may be attacking orthodoxy or industry with the phrase “dark Satanic Mills”, thought in part to refer to the Albion flour mills in Lambeth, which burned down spectacularly in 1791. The poem that opens “And did those feet in ancient time” appeared in the preface to Blake’s epic poem Milton. Photograph: Yale Center for British Art/BAL
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