Unknown (Mysore)
Tippu's Tiger
1793
'Tipu's Tiger' is a near-life-size wooden automaton made around 1790 for Tipu Sultan (1750–1799), the ruler of Mysore in southern India. It depicts a tiger mauling a British East India Company soldier; hidden inside is a keyboard-driven pipe organ that, when operated, produces the growl of the tiger and the groans of the dying man. Seized as booty by British troops at the siege of Seringapatam in 1799 and shipped to London, the automaton has been a centrepiece of the Victoria and Albert Museum's South Asian galleries ever since — and a lightning-rod object in ongoing debates about colonial plunder.
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Image source: Wikimedia Commons