 |
|
n 22 December 1792, the son of Sir Hector Munro was savaged by
a tiger while picnic-ing at Saugur Island off Calcutta. The Gentleman's
Magazine of July 1793 recorded, 'Mr Downey, Lt. Pyefinch and
Poor Munro went on shore at Saugur Island to shoot deer. We saw
many tracks of them, as well as of tigers; at three we sat down
to refresh ourselves when we were told a fine deer was near us.
Downey and I jumped up � I heard a roar like thunder, and saw an
immense tiger spring on Monro.' He died
four days later, and his macabre death is said to have inspired
the design of Tippoo's Tiger.
General Munro had inflicted a humiliating defeat on Hyder
and Tipu at Porto Novo in 1781, a stern response to the
Mysorean victory at Pollilur the
previous year. Munro had already achieved acclaim in the
field, notably at the Battle of Buxar (23 October 1764),
and the gruesome death of his son was commemorated by Staffordshire
pottery figurines, produced c.1820 for the popular market.
In addition to the colourful figures by Obadiah Sherratt
and others, variations on the theme included figures of
the tiger mauling a blackamore, and a watercolour by Joseph
Crawhall (1861-1913) in which a severed head a hand and
two feet (wearing boots) lie in a pool of blood beneath
the tiger's front paws. In the 20th century, two potters,
Robert Michell and Danka Napiorkowska, have taken the same
image, re-arranged the pose of man and beast, and created
a lustreware tureen, inscribed 'a memento of the demise
of a Young Man called Munro in 1792�and a reminder of the
'Man Tyger Organ' taken from Tippoo's
Palace at Seringapatam and now resting in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, London.' .
An even more surprising historicism was the proposal to
use the 'Death of Munro' figure as the logo for the Society
for the Promotion of the History of Zoos and Natural History
in India, (SPHoZ*aNHI) established in 1997. It duly
appeared on the front page of the Society's Newsletter,
Vol II, August 1997
|
No comments:
Post a Comment