Some of the great names
in Victorian and Edwardian taxidermy prepared the mounts and articulated
skeletons for display. Very few of these taxidermy mounts and articulated
skeletons carry provenance. In most cases, the accession records
of the receiving institution only record the name of the taxidermist from
which they were purchased.
.
Taxidermy
Aa 1637. Courtesy: Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
Source: International Thylacine
Specimen Database (2013). |
.
Skeletal
mount Ab 2127. Courtesy: Bristol Museum & Art Gallery.
Source: International Thylacine
Specimen Database (2013). |
.
The London
based taxidermy firms of Edward Gerrard & Sons and Rowland Ward supplied
a number of major museum and university collections with thylacine specimens
(Source:
ITSD, 5th revision, 2013). Some of these specimens were sourced
from thylacines that died at the London Zoo, others from their respective
agents overseas. The "Index to Deaths" records for the London
Zoo (Source: Zoological Society of London library)
note
that the remains of three of the zoo's thylacines
[28.4.1891 - 27.9.1891 (female); 26.3.1902 - 17.1.1906 (female); 28.4.1891
- 5.7.1894 (male)] were sold to Edward Gerrard & Sons.
They also record that Rowland Ward purchased the body of a male thylacine
that died at the zoo on the 25th December 1914. Once prepared, these
specimens were then sold to various museums. The Ward specimen is
now in the collection of the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery preserved
as a taxidermy (Aa 1637). Its skeleton, also in the museum's collection
(Ab 2127), was prepared by Gerrard & Sons as an articulated mount (Source:
ITSD, 5th revision, 2013).
Diplomats and civil
servants posted overseas frequently took an interest in the natural history
of their new surroundings and sent specimens back home. In 1906,
Count
Birger Mörner was appointed Consul General for Sweden in
Sydney. During his period of office he sent home a thylacine skin
now housed in the collection of the Natural History Museum in Göteborg
(GNM Ma.ex. 782)
(Source: ITSD, 5th revision, 2013). |
.
Thylacine
skin GNM Ma.ex. 782. Courtesy: Natural History Museum, Göteborg.
Source: International Thylacine Specimen Database (2013). |
|
In 1902, Dr. Frederic
W. Goding, the U.S. Consul in Newcastle (NSW), procured a female thylacine
and her three pouch young for the National Zoo in Washington D.C. from
the City Park Zoo in Launceston. Their remains are now preserved
as specimens in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution - National
Museum of Natural History (Source: ITSD, 5th revision,
2013).
.
Goding's
thylacine specimens. Courtesy: Smithsonian Institution - National Museum
of Natural History.
Source: International Thylacine
Specimen Database (2013). |
Between 1864 and 1877,
naturalist Francis
de Laporte de Castelnau (1810-1880) was the French Consul in Melbourne.
In 1875, he sent home two thylacine specimens to the Muséum National
d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, both of which remain in the museum's collection
to this day [MNHP A12447 (male skull) & MNHP
1875-805 (female taxidermy) (Source: ITSD, 5th revision, 2013).
In addition
to the major institutions, a number of private collectors had thylacine
specimens in their collections. The contents of the collection of
Hobart librarian Mr. Alfred J Taylor, which included the articulated skeleton
of a Tasmanian tiger, are mentioned in the Mercury newspaper of the 8th
June 1895 (p.1):
"It (Taylor's
home) contains what is emphatically the finest private collection of
ethnological and general scientific specimens in Hobart - probably, the
best in Tasmania - possibly, from the scholarly viewpoint, the best in
these Austral colonies... Keeping to skeletons, adjacent to the veranda
are, several of the principal marsupials of Tasmania, all articulated -
the Tasmanian tiger, the Tasmanian devil, the wallaby of these parts, the
native cat; also leaving marsupials the wedge-tailed eagle and a particularly
beautiful and perfect skeleton of the platypus".
The Healesville and
Yarra Glen Guardian of the 8th November 1907 (p. 2), reports on the contents,
including a stuffed thylacine, of the Old Curiosity Shop at Browns River: |
.
Taxidermy
specimen MNHP 1875-805. Courtesy: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle.
Source: International Thylacine Specimen Database (2013). |
|
.
"At the river is
an old curiosity shop, kept by an old Tasmanian; there are torture instruments,
chains worn by the convicts, beautiful shells, stuffed birds, clothes worn
by convicts, eggs, a stuffed Tasmanian wolf, and a Tasmanian devil.
You can buy shells, but the other things are not for sale".
Over time, many of the
specimens from these small private collections found their way into museum
and university collections, usually without any provenance. |
|