This delightfully naïve ceramic sculpture shows the death of Lieutenant Hugh Monro, a young British army officer serving in India, who was mauled by a tiger while picnicking on a hunting trip in 1792. Monro's gruesome death is said to have inspired the creation of the automaton and mechanical organ 'Tippoo's Tiger'. One of the V&A's most popular exhibits, 'Tippoo's Tiger' was made for the Indian ruler Tipu Sultan, who so loathed the British and identified with the power and ruthlessness of the tiger that he became known as the 'Tiger of Mysore'. The ceramic group echoes the design of the automaton, and it is possible that its sculptor knew the piece, as it was illustrated in prints and exhibited in London after it was seized by the British in 1799. Monro reclines stiffly at the feet of the tiger, apparently blissfully unaware of his fate - an effect that was probably the result of the sculptor having simply reused the model or moulds for a standing military figure without adapting in any way it for its new context. Pottery groups of 'The Death of Munrow' were first made in Staffordshire in the 1810s, and they remained in production until about 1830, when this version with a 'table-top' base was made.