How old is my taxidermy
It is not unusual for a routine example of Victorian taxidermy to be 'rehoused' in an empty case with a trade label or for the ivorine label of Rowland Ward to appear on a previously anonymous big game head. It is important to seek expert advice when purchasing higher value taxidermy by famous Victorian makers. Collectors of antique taxidermy are as discerning as any others.
There is no market for the moth-eaten red fox mounted by an anonymous Edwardian amateur. The key components of a desirable 'mount' are condition, maker, case, species and subject.
Condition is key. Ideally taxidermy should be kept at an ambient temperature, out of direct sunlight and subject to pest control. Sadly that is not always the case and the high cost of professional restoration often significantly more than the item's commercial value dictates that only a small percentage of antique specimens are worthy of preservation.
It is always preferential to have the case sealed and in its original condition. For many years the acceptable face of taxidermy collecting was cased fish - gentleman's trophies of the ones that didn't get away. Many have survived mounted fish suffer less from insect attack so there is a definite collecting hierarchy.
The cases that are most sought after these days are bow-fronted they show the specimen off in the best possible way and give a greater impression of water in the case. It is always desirable to have an inscription in gold leaf denoting the species, the weight and the date and place of capture - and particularly if the specimen happens to be a record-breaker or an unusual catch. Pike, trout, bream, tench, roach, rudd and perch are the most common but Arctic char, bleak and salmon are scarce and command a premium.
Even a deluxe firm such as Peter Spicer produced in large numbers mounts of then common species fox, hare and otter masks and the like over the years. The more exotic or impressive the species the more interest it is likely to generate. At the extreme end are specimens such as the now extinct thylacine or Tasmanian wolf cased by Murray of Carnforth that resides in the Kendal Museum, Cumbria or more than 80 surviving examples of the great auk last sighted in Most collectors prefer cased birds and mammals that show the subject matter as close to how it existed in the wild.
A curious but avidly-collected niche of the Victorian taxidermy output are the anthropomorphic 'tableaux' depicting groups of animals taking part in human activities. According to Melissa Milgrom in her book Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy , the scene, which was scientifically accurate, changed the purpose of taxidermy—it inspired other taxidermists to aim for accuracy in their mounts, too.
Akeley's obsessive method of preserving one elephant was detailed by his wife in her memoir, The Wilderness Lives Again. Milgrom sums it up in Still Life :. After he photographed it for reference, he took detailed measurements with a tape measure and calipers, compensating for variations that make a dead animal different from a living one, such as deflated lungs, a limp trunk, and flaccid muscles. Next he cased the skull and leg bones in plaster and made a death mask of the face to capture its fine musculature.
Akeley skinned animals like a Park Avenue plastic surgeon. All his incisions minimized future seams, so they'd disappear when the animal was assembled later. The legs were cut on the inside; the back was cut longitudinally along the spine; the head was cast, cut off. Once skinned, the elephant was fleshed It took Akeley and his team of porters four to five days to remove and prepare the thick, pound hide, using small knives so they would not mar the skin. Back at the museum, Akeley tanned the hide in a week-long process that turned the 2.
He then made an outline of the elephant on the floor and built its internal frame—using steel, wood, and the elephant's bones—on top of it. He covered the frame with wire mesh, and then clay which he sculpted to recreate the elephant's muscles. After placing the skin on this form and making sure the clay accurately replicated "every fold and wrinkle," Milgrom says, he cast the form in plaster to make a lightweight mannequin, which is what he eventually stretched the skin over.
This is the process he used to create the elephants in the Akeley African Hall of Mammals. In addition to his obsessive eye for detail—he even invented the first portable movie camera to capture footage of animals in the wild, to better create more accurate taxidermy mounts—Akeley was also a badass: In one of many adventures, he killed a leopard with his bare hands.
Skin art, basically. Other terminology: a specimen is a full replica of an animal as it appeared in life, while a trophy is, for example, a lion head mounted on a wall. A mount is a general term that can mean either. The first known taxidermists were the ancient Egyptians. They developed early forms of animal preservation using injections, spices, oils, and such.
They even preserved a hippopotamus, which must have been quite a feat. But hey, they tried. The earliest known mount in existence today is a crocodile hanging from the ceiling of a cathedral in Ponte Nossa, Italy. Several crocodiles show up on the list of oldest existing mount examples, probably because their thick skin makes them hardier. Early taxidermists stuffed mounts with sawdust and rags, which sometimes disfigured them. In contrast, modern taxidermists can purchase mannequins, which they can sculpt into different positions, then stretch and sew skins over them.