“A thrilling bit of taxidermy”
11:46 pm
Museums, it seems, are in a constant struggle to reinvent themselves, updating and enhancing their displays to reflect both the current understanding of particular topics as well as contemporary views on how best to engage their public. On the whole, I happen to feel that these changes are generally beneficial to both the institutions and their audiences. Still, there is an undeniable appeal to the idea of a timeless museum, where one can share the experience of a particular specimen or diorama or exhibit with visitors from generations past or, one hopes, those yet to come.
I was reminded of this during a recent visit to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which is now only days away from unveiling the first part of its extensively remodeled dinosaur halls. While there, I was pleased to see that an old taxidermy mount was still on display in its upper floors, one that had caught my attention when I first came across it some 15 years ago, and, as I subsequently learned, had made an impression on a young Charles Knight when he saw it at the American Museum more than a century prior.
From Charles R. Knight: Autobiography of an Artist (published by G.T. Labs):
“I particularly remember one striking group (our only example) of an Arab camel rider being attacked by a lion. Perhaps other men my age will recall this dramatic piece which for some reason I never clearly understood was in later years given to the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh. I always regretted its going as it certainly was a thrilling bit of taxidermy, and only an artist could have done it. The man of course was wax, but his expression as he sat astride the camel’s neck to escape the claws of the big cat was well worth seeing. A dead lioness with a little red paint for blood lay at the feet of the camel, and this artificial gore was, I fear, the cause of it being sent away, as it was thought too sensational for a staid institution like our Museum.”
Yeah, I also hate to see the old museum dioramas and taxidermy mounts go. Along with the books by Ernest Thompson Seton, Raymond Ditmars, and Roy Chapman Andrews, they got a lot of pre- and post-WWII city kids into natural history. I don’t know what possessed the Smithsonian to replace its North American mammal dioramas with “statue mounts” on pedestals, but it was a mistake. Thanks for the post.
I remember this thing from when I visited the Smithsonian several years ago. Its a pity they removed it; sometimes I think that museums need a mixture of ‘older’ and ‘modern’ exhibits, as too much of the former makes them seem out-dated and too much of the latter make them seem overly showy. Thanks for bringing back a piece of nostalgia!
When I visited the American Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur halls after they were revamped in the early 1990s, I was pleased to see they kept a small version of the old “kangaroo” mount for the Tyrannosaurus rex. That was the centerpiece of the dinosaur halls when I was a kid, and I have some very fond memories of it.
I was equally pleased to see they made a teaching exhibit out of it: “this is what we used to think, but we learned it was wrong for these reasons.”