Tipu's Tiger

[1] The automaton incorporates Tipu's emblem, the tiger, and expresses his hatred of his enemy, the British of the East India Company.

[5] His throne rested upon a probably similar life-size wooden tiger, covered in gold; like other valuable treasures it was broken up for the highly organised prize fund shared out among the British army.

[6][7] Tipu had inherited power from his father Hyder Ali, a Muslim soldier who had risen to become dalwai or commander-in-chief under the ruling Hindu Wodeyar dynasty, but from 1760 was in effect the ruler of the kingdom.

Hyder, after initially trying to ally with the British against the Marathas, had later become their firm enemy, as they represented the most effective obstacle to his expansion of his kingdom, and Tipu grew up with violently anti-British feelings.

[17] The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which owns the Staffordshire figure group illustrated, suggests that the continuing popularity of the subject into the 1820s was due to Tipu's automaton being on display in London.

[4] The painted wooden shell forming both figures likely draws upon South Indian traditions of Hindu religious sculpture.

[24] The style of both shell and workings, and analysis of the metal content of the original brass pipes of the organ (many have been replaced), indicates that the tiger was of local manufacture.

An aide-de-camp to the Governor-General of the East India Company, Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, wrote a memorandum describing the discovery of the object:[25][26] "In a room appropriated for musical instruments was found an article which merits particular notice, as another proof of the deep hate, and extreme loathing of Tippoo Saib towards the English.

It is imagined that this memorial of the arrogance and barbarous cruelty of Tippoo Sultan may be thought deserving of a place in the Tower of London.

It preceded the move of the exhibit from India to England and had a separate preface titled "Description of the Frontispiece" which said:[27] "This drawing is taken from a piece of mechanism representing a royal tyger in the act of devouring a prostrate European.

The whole of this design is as large as life, and was executed by order of Tippoo Sultaun, who frequently amused himself with the sight of this emblematic triumph of the Khoodadaud, over the English, Sircar.

The piece of machinery was found in a room of the palace at Seringapatam appropriated for the reception of musical instruments, and called the Rag Mehal.

The original wooden figure from which the drawing is taken will be forwarded, by the ships of this season, to the Chairman of the Court of Directors, to be presented to his Majesty.

It is imagined that this characteristic emblem of the ferocious animosity of Tippoo Sultaun against the British Nation may not be thought undeserving of a place in the Tower of London.

[31] Eventually the crank-handle disappeared, to the great relief of students using the reading-room in which the tiger was displayed, and The Athenaeum later reported that "These shrieks and growls were the constant plague of the student busy at work in the Library of the old India House, when the Leadenhall Street public, unremittingly, it appears, were bent on keeping up the performances of this barbarous machine.

Luckily, a kind fate has deprived him of his handle, and stopped up, we are happy to think, some of his internal organs... and we do sincerely hope he will remain so, to be seen and admired, if necessary, but to be heard no more".

[4] Today Tipu's Tiger is arguably the best-known single work in the Victoria and Albert Museum as far as the general public is concerned.

"Whether made for Tippoo himself or for some other Indian potentate a century and a half earlier, it is difficult to convey a more lively impression of the mingled ferocity and childish want of taste so characteristic of the majority of Asian princes than will be communicated at once by this truly barbarous piece of music."

[49] Motives for collection of articles, such as Tipu's Tiger, are seen by literary historian Barrett Kalter as having a social and cultural context.

[50] The collection of Western and Indian art by Tipu Sultan is seen by Kalter as motivated by the need to display his wealth and legitimise his authority over his subjects who were predominantly Hindu and did not share his religion, viz.

Ord-Hume is generally ready to exempt Willis work from his scathing comments on other drastic restorations, which "vandalism" is assumed to be by unknown earlier organ-builders.

[54] There was a detailed account of the sound-making functions in The Penny Magazine in 1835, whose anonymous author evidently understood "things mechanical and organs in particular".

[58][59] The keyboard, which is largely original, is "unique in construction", with "square ivory buttons" with round lathe-turned tops instead of conventional keys.

[62] The poet John Keats saw Tipu's Tiger at the museum in Leadenhall Street and worked it into his satirical verse of 1819, The Cap and Bells.

[64][65] More recently, the American Modernist poet, Marianne Moore wrote in her 1967 poem Tippoo's Tiger about the workings of the automaton,[66] though in fact the tail was never movable: Die Seele (The Souls), a work by painter Jan Balet (1913–2009), shows an angel trumpeting over a flower garden while a tiger devours a uniformed French soldier.