The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing

284 Pages·2012·5.63 MB·English

by  Rachel Poliquin

THE BREATHLESS ZOO
Nigel Rothfels and Garry Marvin
GENERAL EDITORS
ADVISORY BOARD:
Steve Baker
University of Central Lancashire
Susan McHugh
University of New England
Jules Pretty
University of Essex
Alan Rauch
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Books in the Animalibus series share a fascination with the status and the role of animals in human life.
Crossing the humanities and the social sciences to include work in history, anthropology, social and
cultural geography, environmental studies, and literary and art criticism, these books ask what thinking
about nonhuman animals can teach us about human cultures, about what it means to be human, and about
how that meaning might shift across times and places.
THE
TAXIDERMY AND THE CULTURES Rachel
BREATHLESS ZOO
OF LONGING Poliquin
THE PENNSYLVANIA
STATE UNIVERSITY
PRESS
UNIVERSITY PARK,
PENNSYLVANIA
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Poliquin, Rachel, 1975–
The breathless zoo : taxidermy and the cultures of longing / Rachel Poliquin.
p. cm. — (Animalibus : of animals and cultures)
Summary: “A cultural and poetic analysis of the art and science of taxidermy, from sixteenth-century
cabinets of wonders to contemporary animal art”—Provided by publisher.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
978-0-271-05372-1
ISBN
(cloth : acid-free paper)
1. Taxidermy—History.
2. Taxidermy—Social aspects.
3. Taxidermy—Psychological aspects.
4. Human-animal relationships.
5. Desire—Social aspects.
6. Animals in art.
7. Animals in literature.
I. Title.
63. 65 2012
QL P
590.75’2—dc23
2011045700
Copyright © 2012
The Pennsylvania State University
All rights reserved
Printed in Singapore by
Tien Wah Press, Ltd.
Published by
The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003
The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses.
It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated
stock satisfy the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, 39.48–1992.
ANSI Z
Designed by Regina Starace
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 WONDER
2 BEAUTY
3 SPECTACLE
4 ORDER
5 NARRATIVE
6 ALLEGORY
7 REMEMBRANCE
Notes
Illustrations
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
1Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson, Somerset, from Nanoq: Flat
Out and Bluesome
2Bryndís Snæbjörnsdóttir and Mark Wilson, Nanoq: Flat Out and Bluesome
3The museum of Ferrante Imperato
4Dehydrated flying fish from the nineteenth century
5An assortment of wondrous bits and pieces from Nehemiah Grew’s
Musæum Regalis Societatis
6A kitten with eight legs and two tails preserved by Walter Potter at the end
of the nineteenth century
7Nineteenth-century hummingbird case on display in the Birds Gallery of
the Natural History Museum, London
8Bonnier de La Mosson’s Second Cabinet of Natural History
9Two ocelots in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin
10John Everett Millais, The Ornithologist
11Binding or “setting up” a peregrine falcon
12Henri Rousseau, Le lion, ayant faim, se jette sur l’antilope, 1898/1905
13The positioning of a flat “body board” and rods for setting up a lion skin
14Jules Verreaux, Arab Courier Attacked by Lions
15African lion diorama in Akeley Hall of African Mammals, American Museum
of Natural History, New York
16The Tsavo lions at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
17The zebras in Gallery 4 at the Natural History Museum in Tring, England
18Two zebras at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
19Flat storage of study skins in the Birds Division at the Smithsonian Museum,
Washington, D.C.
20Daniëlle van Ark, Untitled (Zebras 01)
21William Adolph Baillie-Grohman with his favorite wapiti head
22Angela Singer, Thorn
23The hunting hall in the Agricultural Museum in Vajdahunyad Castle, Budapest
24View of front desk area in the Meeker Hotel, Meeker, Colorado, in 1903
25An inside view of the Contemporary Zoological Conservatory in Toronto
26Hermann Ploucquet, The Ermines’ Tea Party
27Walter Potter, The Rabbits’ Village School
28Squirrel cowboy at the Cress Funeral Home in Madison, Wisconsin
29Idiots, Ophelia
30Life and Nice, from Iris Schieferstein’s Life Can Be So Nice
31The stuffed parrot that allegedly perched on Gustave Flaubert’s desk as he
wrote “Un coeur simple”
32A playful look at pet preservation
33The dogs of Gallery 6 in the Natural History Museum, London
34Tinkebell, Popple
35Martin d’Orgeval, Touched by Fire