#tippoo

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Tippoo's Tiger

'Tippoo's Tiger' was made for Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore in South India from 1782 to 1799. The tiger, an almost life-sized wooden semi-automaton, mauls a European soldier lying on his back. Concealed inside the tiger's body, behind a hinged flap, is an organ which can be operated by turning the handle next to it. This simultaneously makes the man's arm lift up and down and produces noises intended to imitate his dying moans. 

Tigers and tiger stripes were part of the decoration of Tipu Sultan's possessions and anything made to proclaim his rule or personal association. Jewelled gold tiger head finials were on his throne, and tiger stripes were stamped onto his coinage, and his swords and guns incorporated tiger heads and stripes in their forms and ornamentation. Small bronze mortars made for his army were in the shape of crouching tigers, and the men who fired lethal iron-cased rockets against the British wore tunics with stripes woven into the fabric.

Tipu Sultan strongly resisted the attacks by British East India Company army on his kingdom. The Company had been established to trade, but by the late 18th century was extending British rule in India. It fought three wars against Mysore before making the final assault on Tipu's capital, Seringapatam, in 1799.

[theeditorandnarratorcollaborate]

GABBLER RECOMMENDS: "Tania James on Trust, Truth, and the Desire to Create Something That Lasts"

From the podcast: Tania James: Yeah, I don’t think he actually commissioned the elephant clock. I kind of created this moment. But I think he would’ve really responded to that object that was created and designed by a 12th-century Muslim polymath. His name was Al-Jazari and he is well known in the Arab world. I don’t know. But when I discovered this thing, this was a whole other world of…

[rheasmusings]

So I’ve been retracing some of Henry and Alex’s steps across London where I was staying for a couple of days, around South Kensington, because it brings me an absurd amount of joy.

I kind of went backwards, so my first stop was the Victoria and Albert Museum! Gods it is GORGEOUS, I could spend days in there. Definitely suggest visiting, especially because it’s not too touristy.

Anyway, I went to all of the specific sculptures that were mentioned (I literally held the book in my hand as I did so), mainly located in rooms 50a, b, c and d. At the end of that, there was the chapel where they danced to Elton John’s “Your Song”, which I of course put my headphones in for and played while I stood there. (Very, very therapeutic, especially if you imagine how peaceful it might be at night.)

Heres the chapel:

I also tracked down Tippoo’s Tiger, the only one that was really in a completely different wing (South Asia), also because I had heard of it before. My family is Indian, so as a brown person, I had to see this one (and Henry’s quite right about the irony of it all). Definitely check that section out!

The whole museum was beautiful, jut a lot of stolen goods unfortunately :(

And finally, of course, I had to go to Prince Consort Road!

If you made it to the end of this lengthy post, I thank you for traveling with me on this iconic journey 😂

[joostjongepier]

Wat?   Venetian Boy Catching a Crab (1892-1893) door Henrietta Skerrett Montalba, Helen of Troy, (na 1812), Theseus and the Minotaur (1782) en The Three Graces (1814-17) door Antonio Canova, The Fallen Angel (1895-1900) en The Age of Bronze (gemodelleerd 1876-77, voor het eerst gegoten in brons 1880) door Auguste Rodin en Thetis Dipping Achilles in the River Styx door Thomas Banks (1790)

Waar?   Victoria & Albert Museum, Londen

Wanneer?   10 januari 2023

Het is decennia geleden dat ik het Victoria and Albert Museum (meestal V&A genoemd) bezocht. Wat me er nog van bijstaat is een grote verzameling mode en een afdeling met heel veel muziekinstrumenten. Van kunst is me van dat bezoek weinig bijgebleven. Op de laatste middag van mijn bezoek aan Londen besluit ik het V&A opnieuw te bezoeken. Vanaf het metrostation leidt een lange tunnel naar een ingang van het museum die direct uitkomt op de afdeling sculptuur. Ik heb het hele museum bekeken. Nou ja, bekijken is natuurlijk een te groot woord voor zo’n immens museum volgepakt met duizenden voorwerpen. Ik zag fraaie schilderijen van Constable en Turner, kartons van Rafaël en Tippoo’s Tijger. Maar omdat je nu eenmaal niet alles goed kunt bekijken, besloot ik me te concentreren op de afdeling beeldhouwkunst. Deze bevat een zeer fraaie verzameling werken met grote namen.

Centraal in de hal staat een werk dat ik herken, maar waarvan de kunstenares mij volledig onbekend is. Het gaat om Venetian Boy Catching a Crab van Henrietta Skerrett Montalba (1848-1893). Ze studeerde aan de National Art Training School (nu: Royal College of Art) en aan de Accademia de Belle Arti in Venetië. Ze specialiseerde zich in portretbustes van terracotta, waarmee ze talloze prijzen won. Het fraaie beeld van de Venetiaanse vissersjongen werd in 1893 tentoongesteld in de Royal Academy en op de World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Hoewel zijn werken erg gladjes zijn, ben ik toch een immens bewonderaar van Antonio Canova. Zijn Amor en Psyche in het Louvre behoort (met werken van Bernini) tot de allermooiste beeldhouwwerken die ik ken. Hier in de V&A staan een aantal werken van zijn hand. Naast een buste van Helena van Troje, is dat Teseus and the Minotaur. De held uit de Griekse mythe heeft de Minotaurus (een monter, half-mens, half-stier) gedood. Op de rots liggen de spoelen met draad die Theseus moeten helpen uit het labyrint te komen. Canova was in de twintig toen hij dit indrukwekkende beeld maakte. En dan is er als derde The Three Graces. Zij representeren vrolijkheid, elegantie en jeugd en schoonheid. De hertog van Bedford gaf opdracht voor dit beeld toen hij Rome bezocht. Hij plaatste het in een speciaal ontworpen ‘tempel’ in zijn huis.

Van de geïdealiseerde beelden van Canova naar de veel ruwere en modernere beelden van Rodin. The Fallen Angel toont een geveugelde figuur die op de grond is gevallen en vastgehouden wordt door een naakte vrouw. Het beeld is bijna een zoekplaatje. Waar houdt het ene lichaam op en begint het andere? The Age of Bronze was Rodin’s eerste levensgrote beeld. Hij gebruikte een soldaat als model omdat hij de houdingen van professionele modellen te conventioneel vond. Toen het werk voor het eerst werd tentoongesteld, vond men het zo levensecht dat critici de kunstenaar ervan beschuldigden dat het een afgietsel was. Rodin moest bewijzen dat de kwaliteit van het beeld te danken was aan zijn zorgvuldige observatie.

Een paar dagen gelden schreef ik dat het altijd leuk is om een werk tegen te komen dat je herkent, omdat je het eerder in een totaal andere context hebt gezien. Dat is ook vandaag weer het geval. In januari 2020 bezocht ik de tentoonstelling Troy, myth and reality in het British Museum. Daar zag ik een beeld, dat blijkbaar thuis is in het Victoria & Albert Museum, namelijk Thetis Dipping Achilles in the River Styx. Uit mijn kunstdagboek van toen: “Thetis, de moeder van Achilles, doopt hem in de rivier de Styx om hem zo onkwetsbaar te maken. Omdat ze de baby vasthoudt bij zijn hiel, vormt dat, inmiddels spreekwoordelijke, lichaamsdeel later zijn enige kwetsbare plek. De hiel zal hem uiteindelijk fataal worden.”

[juliehowlin]

The Moonstone

The Moonstone is not actually about a moonstone. The moonstone in the book is a Yellow Diamond, the Tippoo diamond, which was taken from India by a corrupt army officer called John Herncastle. Three Hindu priests dedicated their lives to recovering it.

10 things you might not know about The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins:

[rivingtonpike]

What a lovely sight.

photo credit: TipPoo Lim Kim Hyun Joong

[bizarrobrain]

[lindahall]

Tipu Sultan – Scientist of the Day

Tipu Sultan, the "Tiger of Mysore," was born Nov. 20, 1750.  

read more...

[pwlanier]

Tipu’s Tiger (also Tippoo’s Tiger), c. 1793, Mysore, painted wood with metal fixtures (The Victoria and Albert Museum, © Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Tipu Sultan’s mechanical tiger has long been one of the most well-known items in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. A large automaton (a machine that can move by itself), the tiger is shown in the act of attacking a European man. When played, the man’s left arm flails and the organ emits the sounds of the roaring cat and the cries of its victim. Perhaps what is most striking about the tiger is its change in ownership and meanings: it was made for an Indian ruler who spent much of his adult life fighting the British, and it later became a tool for imperial propaganda in Britain.

[mrinalkantimajumder]

SIR DAVID WILKIE 

 On this day of 18th November, Sir David Wilkie (18 November 1785 – 1 June 1841) was born in Pitlessie Fife in Scotland.

 He developed a love for art at an early age. After he had attended school at Pitlessie, Kingskettle, and Cupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter. Wilkie was admitted to the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh, and studied under John Graham, Sir William Allan, and John Burnet.

Wilkie was especially known for his genre scenes. He painted successfully in a wide variety of genres, including historical scenes, portraits, of formal royal ones, and scenes from his travels to Europe and the Middle East.

His main base was in London, but he died and was buried at sea, off Gibraltar, returning from his first trip to the Middle East. He was sometimes known as the "people's painter".

He was Principal Painter in Ordinary to King William IV and Queen Victoria. Apart from royal portraits, his best-known painting today is probably The Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch 

At the early stages, the painting which needs mention was Ceres in Search of Proserpine, and Diana and Calisto, while his pencil portraits of himself and his mother are now in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch.

Wilke’s other notable paintings are The Pitlessie Fair which includes about 140 figures, Bounty-Money, or the Village Recruit, Village Politicians, The Blind Fiddler, Alfred in the Neatherd's Cottage,  Card-Players The Rent Day, Ale-House Door or The Village Festival, Blind Man's Buff. Letter of Introduction, Distraining for Rent, Reading the Will, The Abbotsford Family, The Pifferari, Princess Doria, The Maid of Saragossa, The Spanish Podado, Guerilla Council of War, The Guerilla Taking Leave of his Family, the Guerilla's Return to his Family, Two Spanish Monks of Toledo, Columbus in the Convent, Napoleon, Pius VII, Empress Josephine, and the Fortune-Teller, Queen Victoria Presiding at her First Council, and General Sir David Baird Discovering the Body of Sultan Tippoo Sahib 

In 1836 he received the honour of Knighthood.

[galina]

Some recommendations for an autumn in faber poems—

Louis MacNeice, Autumn Journal Emily Berry, Dear Boy Maurice Riordan, The Holy Land Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic Rachel Allen, Kingdomland Daljit Nagra, Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!!

[harvestheart]

Tippoo's Tiger (around 1790) Courtesy of V&A

[uwmspeccoll]

A Henty A Week

This week’s Henty takes us to 18th century India with The Tiger of Mysore: A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib, by G. A. Henty. Our copy of this was published in 1895 by Scribner’s Sons with both illustrations and maps, one of which was printed in color! The illustrations are by the English painter and illustrator William Henry Margetson.

The Tiger of Mysore was the nickname given to the Tipu Sultan, ruler of Mysore. Both Tipu Sultan and his father before him, Sultan Hyder Ali, held off the British invasion of the region for many years and were known as the enemies of the British East India Company. Assessments of Tipu Sultan’s rule have been divided: some historians have championed him as a freedom fighter and the ruler who lifted the Mysore region to become India’s dominant economic power of the time; others believe he was a tyrant and persecuted the Muslim and Christian populations under his rule. History buffs can learn more about his contested legacy in this article by Professor Janaki Nair, which was recently published online by All About History. 

This story, like so many of Henty’s others, again champions British colonialism.So, what sets this story apart from the others? Well, we think it’s the accidental double entendres of the illustration captions.... 

View more posts from our Henty a Week series.

-- Katie, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[vivelareine]

A portrait of Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, 1789. [credit: Sotheby’s, via Invaluable]

Lebrun on this portrait:

In 1788 some envoys were sent to Paris by the Emperor Tippoo Sahib. I saw these Indians at the opera and they appeared to me so remarkably picturesque that I thought I should like to paint them. But as they communicated to their interpreter that they would never allow them selves to be painted unless the request came from the King, I managed to secure that favour from His Majesty. I repaired to the hotel where the strangers were lodging, for they wanted to be painted at home. On my arrival one of them brought in a jar of rose-water, with which he sprinkled my hands; then the tallest, whose name was Davich Kahn, gave me a sitting. I did him standing, with his hand on his dagger. He threw himself into such an easy, natural position of his own accord that I did not make him change it. I let the paint dry in another room, and began on the portrait of the old ambassador, whom I represented seated with his son next to him. The father especially had a magnificent head. Both were clad in flowing robes of white muslin worked with golden flowers, and these robes, a sort of long tunic with wide, up-turned sleeves, were held in place by gorgeous belts.

[96thdayofrage]

Elitist Migrant Ancestors of African Slavers

Tippu Tip

Tippu Tip, or Tippu Tib (1832 – June 14, 1905), real name Ḥamad ibn Muḥammad ibn Jumʿah ibn Rajab ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al Murjabī (Arabic: حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي), was an Afro-Omani ivory and slave trader, explorer, governor and plantation owner. He worked for a succession of the sultans of Zanzibar. Tippu Tip traded in slaves for Zanzibar's clove plantations. As part of the large and lucrative ivory trade, he led many trading expeditions into Central Africa, constructing profitable trading posts deep into the region. He bought the ivory from local suppliers and resold it for a profit at coastal ports. He was also the most well known slave trader in Africa, supplying much of the world with black slaves.

Based on descriptions of his age at different points in his life, it is believed that Tippu Tip was born around 1832 in Zanzibar.[1] Tippu Tip's mother, Bint Habib bin Bushir, was a Muscat Arab of the ruling class. His father and paternal grandfather were coastal Arabs of the Swahili Coast who had taken part in the earliest trading expeditions to the interior. His paternal great-grandmother, wife of Rajab bin Mohammed bin Said el Murgebi, was the daughter of Juma bin Mohammed el Nebhani, a member of a respected Muscat (Oman) family, and a Bantu woman from the village of Mbwa Maji, a small village south of what would later become the German capital of Dar es Salaam.[2]

Throughout his lifetime Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi was more commonly known as Tippu Tib, which translates to "the gatherer together of wealth".[1] According to him, he was given the nickname Tippu Tip after the "tiptip" sound that his guns gave off during expeditions in Chungu territory.[3]

At a relatively young age, Tippu Tip led a group of about 100 men into Central Africa seeking slaves and ivory.[1] After plundering several large swathes of land, he returned to Zanzibar to consolidate his resources and recruit for his forces. Following this he returned to mainland Africa.[4]

Tippu Tip built a trading empire, using the proceeds to establish clove plantations on Zanzibar. Abdul Sheriff reported that when he left for his twelve years of "empire building" on the mainland, he had no plantations of his own. By 1895, he had acquired "seven 'shambas' [plantations] and 10,000 slaves".[5]

He met and helped several famous western explorers of the African continent, including David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley.[6]: Vol. Two, 91–97  Between 1884 and 1887 he claimed the Eastern Congo for himself and for the Sultan of Zanzibar, Bargash bin Said el Busaidi. In spite of his position as protector of Zanzibar's interests in Congo, he managed to maintain good relations with the Europeans. When, in August 1886, fighting broke out between the Swahili and the representatives of King Leopold II of Belgium at Stanley Falls, al-Murjabī went to the Belgian consul at Zanzibar to assure him of his "good intentions". Although he was still a force in Central African politics, he could see by 1886 that power in the region was shifting.

Sources[edit]

Bennett, Norman Robert (1986). Arab vs. European: Diplomacy and war in Nineteenth-Century East Central Africa. New York: Africana Publishing Company.

Elliot, Charles (1907). Preface. Tippoo Tib: The Story of His Career in Zanzibar & Central Africa. By Brode, Heinrich. Translated by Havelock, H. London: Arnold.

Edgerton, Robert B. (2002). The Troubled Heart of Africa: A History of the Congo. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-30486-2.

Hinde, Sidney Langford (1897). The Fall of the Congo Arabs. London: Methuen & co. ISBN 978-1313986960.

Maisha ya Hamed bin Mohammed el Murjebi yaani Tippu Tip kwa maneno yake mwenyewe, kimefasiriwa na W.H. Whitely (toleo la Kiswahili - Kiingereza), East Africa Literature Bureau 1974

Oliver, Roland Anthony (2004). Africa since 1800. Cambridge University Press. p. 85. ISBN 0-521-83615-8. tippu tip mother.

Sheriff, Abdul. Slaves, Spices & Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770-1873. London, Nairobi, Tanzania, Athens,OH: James Currey, Heinemann Kenya, Tanzania Publishing House, Ohio University Press, 1987.