February 13, 2013 • 40 mins
By the time he was 19, Potter had preserved and mounted 98 birds. In 1880, his work had grown to a point where it had to be moved to a building, which became his museum. Potter's museum collection continues to enthrall collectors and enthusiasts.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And do you
know is Sarah? Do you recall your first exposure to
(00:22):
our topic today? Taxidermy? Well, I was going to save
this story a little bit, but I'm gonna bring it
out now. I was telling it to you already this morning.
I'm pretty sure at the Atlanta's Capital, Georgia State Capitol
here in Atlanta, lovely building, gold Dome. Anybody who's been
(00:43):
to Atlanta's probably not. If it driven up eighty five,
you've seen it. If you grow up in Atlanta, you
go there on many a field trip. And the most
memorable memorable part, at least for me and for I
think most of my classmates, was not the trips to
of the you know, see the legislators or any of that,
(01:04):
what we're excited about government in action. It was the museum,
the Little Capital Museum, which featured lots of strange Georgia history,
but also, most memorably, a two headed calf sweetened a
two headed snake. Welcome to Georgia, visitors, And I said
(01:25):
the CEO this morning. But I went there sort of
on a whim just a few years ago, so as
an adult, and I noticed that those two items were
not as prominently displayed as they used to be. They
almost seem to be displayed just as like a nod.
We know people really liked these, we have to keep
them out, but they're kind of weird and maybe don't
(01:45):
exactly belong in the state capital. Yeah, so that's my answer,
that's my Those are the first clear memories of taxidermia.
I would have been familiar because I both of my
parents are from farm families that hunted, so I know
there were some deer head and I vaguely remember being
at my grandparents house and being barely transfixed by one
(02:07):
particular buck that I had that simultaneously, oh this is
really neat and interesting and oh he was just looking
for a meal and you shot him fandi stad. Yeah,
but I do remember being fascinated and like questioning my
father relentlessly about how did they why? Who thought this
(02:27):
was a good idea? What do you think? Just how?
Like I was completely simultaneously horrified and just fascinated, like
why does this exist? Yeah? Why do we do it?
And then later in my life I was exposed to
the work of the text ermist were talking about today
who anyone who is into taxidermy, I am confident will
(02:48):
know this person the second we say his name, and
it is Walter Potter. And I got exposed to his
work when I was working in the library and a
book that featured one of his pieces came across my
desk and I remember looking at it and then looking
at it again, and looking at it about seventeen more
times in the next twelve minutes. And somebody really put
this together because he did these amazing, wondrously bizarre tableau
(03:14):
with animals. And this is where people do need to
stop for a minute. And if you're on your run, okay,
we'll come back to it last describe a few things,
but you're gonna want the visual for yourself that this
stuff for sure. I know that it makes you wish
that it was a video podcast at a time like this,
But check out these because well to describe them, but
(03:36):
you really need the pictures. And there's some great pictures
fortunately to like modern color pictures. And we'll talk about
kind of where his work is now, um like where
the physical works exist now, um, but we'll start at
the beginning. So he was born in Sussex, um in
(03:56):
five and he worked at his family's in which was
called the White Line in now it's called the Castle
and it's in Bramber. And I have never I've read
several biographical accounts about him. No one ever really talks
about his early childhood. I presume it was probably pretty
standard and kids, you know, kids stuff, working in the
family um in. But then at approximately aged fifteen, he
(04:21):
I'm presuming, because no one ever spelled this out either,
I'm presuming that his pet canary passed before he had
the idea to preserve it. Um, let's hope. So, yeah,
it was a memento almost. Yeah, And this was at
a time when preserving your pets was starting to become
more popular anyway, So it was not necessarily a thing
(04:45):
an idea he would have just magically had on his own.
He may have seen something about it or read something
about it. Not the sign of a disturbed teenage boy,
A normal thing to do. No, he didn't do it
that well though. No, Apparently that first effort was not
so hot, which anytime someone's learning a new craft or trade,
usually the first Go is not going to be a masterpiece.
(05:07):
There has been some discussion, but there's never been any
corroboration that he might have been influenced by an exhibit
that was at the Great Exhibition in London in eighteen
fifty one by Ermann Pluquet, and anyone feel free to
correct me if I mispronounced that. But he had an
exhibit that was Small Animal Taxidermy UM, and it was
(05:28):
UM basically the story of Rennicky the Fox, which is
based on the Wilhelm von Kalbach etchings of Geta's medieval
trickster Tail. So it's kind of like a uh, it's
these if you've never seen that one, it's these hilarious
little rodents that are acting out these adventures and they're
kind of like two. It's like a pair that are
(05:49):
doing one activity after another, like almost like a comic
strip animal tableau. Yeah, so it's not one big tableau
that tells the story. It's it's laid out like sequential art.
I like the idea that he would have been inspired
by the Great Exhibition. To so many of the subjects
we've discussed in the past, including to Blina's last episode.
There was some toilet inspiration that came from the Great Exhibition.
(06:13):
It's an exciting time in London that it is this
sort of cultural point where where all people are exposed
to new things for the first time. And it certainly
seems plausible that this young boy from a country village
would come across something that he found really magical at
the Great Exhibition. Well, and even like I said, there
(06:35):
have not been any corroborative writings to say definitively yes,
he was there, but the Great Exhibition was so big
that people were talking about the things that they had seen,
and it traveled even so U So, yeah, he did
his canary, and there's a great um quote that he
(06:56):
gave apparently in he did a correspondence interview with the
Idler magazine and he says, well, after I'd done my canary,
people encouraged me to persevere. If they saw any bird
or animal they thought I would like, they'd bring it
or send it to me. So he was practicing throughout
these years after he was fifteen, because he did take
(07:16):
a shine to this craft, and then he got the
idea that he could put them together in big works
of art. And that's kind of the turning point here,
not just melting an animal and displaying it uniquely creating
some scene with it. Yeah. It really became almost like
a painter with a paintbrush. He would create entire vistas
(07:37):
and stories using mounted animals. Um And the first big
one is the History of cock Robin, which uh he
used ninety eight birds. I believe that he had been
working on through the years. And this is when he
was nineteen. He had gotten all of those together and
he worked on the history of the original death and burial.
(07:59):
I'm so it wasn't The history um is the original
death and burial of cock Robin. And he worked on
this for years and years. But it basically was a
big funeral procession for cock Robin, including the I believe
it was a sparrow that had shot him with an
arrow with my bow and arrow. Yeah, and there was
an owl grave digger, and you know, the grave is there,
(08:22):
and there are other animals there to pay their respects.
It's like a big story, yeah, inspired by the nursery
rhyme to where all of the birds are picking their
roles the role they will perform during cock Robin's funeral. Um.
And and that's the other major difference here, So putting
(08:44):
the animals together in a tableau, but not in an
animal like way. It's not a natural history museum setting.
It's a human like setting. Yeah, these aren't. Later on
he starts to add even more human accessories to it.
These aren't like clothed yet. There are a couple with
ribbons around their necks. Um. And the owl clearly is
(09:07):
holding a little a little shovel where that he's digging
the grave with. But yeah, this is really you know,
as Sarah said, the very time, that it was mounted
animals doing human things, almost like you would see in
like a children's book or a cartoon. Yeah, that that
nursery vime inspiration is very apparent, and it carries through
(09:27):
his work pretty much his entire life. Uh So at
that point, as his work started to expand, they had
to expand his work area. So he first moved into
a barn loft at his family's house. Uh. And then
once he started creating these big works, they went on
display at the end. Uh And there have been different
(09:50):
accounts of where they went on display and what the
purpose was. And I think it's kind of a case
of revisionist history. Uh. It sounds like his parents were
very encouraging of his work because I'm sure they saw
it as a potential career. Um and he says in
that same interview with the Idler that his father um
(10:12):
eventually built do they call it a t shehad, I
think behind the end where he could put his his
big work on display. And of course then his work
continued to grow and growing. Glenny described the little girls
about his age, you know, teenage girls coming to to
see the see his work for the first time and
(10:33):
leaving some coins behind and starting to get that idea,
Oh wait, maybe I can make money. Yeah, that's where
he got his idea for a museum. Well, and as
you were mentioning too, with other accounts you see of this,
I mean, some are saying it was a direct marketing
strategy that his parents were like, come and see the
(10:53):
end where we have have a high animal check out
of the death of cock Robin. Yeah, exactly. But others
are more like, oh, it kind of happened accidentally. I can't.
I can see it either way. I mean we were
saying earlier, I think I would go slightly out of
my way to visit a inn or a pub that
had these strange scenes, especially since they were pretty trendy
(11:16):
at the time. Yeah, or just you know you happen
upon them. It has nothing to do with marketing the pub. Yes.
So eventually, um in eighteen sixty six he moved his
workshop to a new spot because the stable loft was
not containing his situation anymore. And then again in eighteen
eighty he moved into a specially built building which eventually
(11:36):
became his museum. And that museum wasn't only for his work.
He also collected curiosities from other places, um, including like
a lot of it was natural history type items like
horns and teeth. There were skulls, and he had some
human artifacts like his shoes and jewelry. Uh, just sort
of a random collection hodgepodge of things. This part of
(11:59):
the story reminded me so much of P. T. Barnum's
story and the the era before him of of natural
history museums, I guess, the birth of natural history museums
and going from these collections curios just a strange hodgepodge
of things, some valuable, some just old teeth or horns
(12:23):
or whatnot, all brought together and and the fad for
for seeing those at the time. Yeah, I mean people
were very fascinated by this idea of just looking at
things from other people's lives or other animals that they
maybe hadn't been exposed to in their natural, day to
day life. UM. That it was, as you said, like,
(12:45):
this was really when the idea of the Natural History
Museum was starting to kind of boom and grow, and
the Natural History Museum and the Freak Show Museum, and
it was all kind of two different people were looking
for entertainment a variety of ways at the same time. UM.
And he did start taking on work as um a taxidermist,
(13:09):
like on demand for people, like he would preserve their
pets for them. UM. It was very starting to get
very popular for people to keep mounted animals in their parlors. UM.
Some would be like their personal family pets, but some
also collected like exotic birds. Apparently, UM, Queen Victoria had
some exotic birds, which is the thing I had not
(13:30):
known until we were digging in on research for this. UM.
So he would do all of that, but really he
always wanted to continue creating these tableau And a question
that always comes up whenever you're talking about Walter Potter
with people is where was he getting these animals? Did
he start seeing tableau with twenty kittens and them will
(13:50):
cross your mind? Yeah? So apparently he mentioned in that
that interview that I sided earlier, that people would bring
him what they thought were interesting specimens. But he also
kind of had a deal going on with local farmers.
And this is where our modern pet loving brain has
to kind of close down and be put aside for
a little while, because I have a hard time with
(14:11):
this being like a crazy animal person. Um. You know,
on farms, they don't always spay neuter their pets and
cats are there to work, they're there to keep vermin
at bay. But because they are animals that have not
been fixed, they are having lots of babies and often
way more than really can be sustained by what the
road and population on the farm is. So farmers would
bring him unwanted kittens. I have not really found a
(14:34):
clear indicator as to whether they were already deceased when
they got to Mr Potter or if he took care
of that. Um. But I do know, like I said,
I grew up with some farm family background. For you know,
people that grow up in that it's often and especially
at this period of time. It wasn't like you went
to the vet and had animals euthanized. You kind of
(14:55):
learned to do the dirty work and make the hard
decision of taking care of situations like that. Well, and
the history of the animals seemed to become kind of
an issue too in the nineteen seventies, with the museum
and visitors concerned that it was cruelty to animals, so
much so that museum had to put up a little
placard saying, for one thing, these are over a hundred
(15:18):
years old, and also don't worry. No animals were specifically
killed for the project, which they would have been done
away with one way or the other. This way, they
just went on to become part of art's troubling it is.
I mean, I, as I said, I have to kind
of put away my my animal loving brain for a
(15:40):
moment and just think about, you know, the time period
and how animals you know, we're seeing more as livestock
at that point. It wasn't like their cuddly pet. It
was they were working creatures. But also people would bring
him um unfortunate specimens that had maybe not lived very
long because they were not healthy. Maybe once more in
(16:03):
line with my two headed snake. Um we mentioned earlier.
You can find all manner of images of these things
if you look, and some of them, like some of
the more malformedones there. It's like the kitten with eight
legs and two tails, which is what it's called. It's
very basic. Um kitten with eight legs and yeah, kitten
(16:24):
with eight legs and two tails. There's one that has
There are a couple that have like two faces. There
are um you know. So he did those kind of
about a fascination, and I think he was probably studying
anatomy at the same time, you know what I mean.
It was giving him some clues into how the differences
between right and wrong create the structure properly. But then
(16:47):
he was also doing really artistic works like the Village School,
which is a bunch of tiny bunnies with little chalkboards
and they have little desks, and he would craft all
of their accessories as well, so they're tiny little lesson books.
All of that was handmade. Um. The guinea pigs cricket
match that one has always cracked me up. There is
(17:09):
a full guinea pig band with brass multi Yeah, they
are they are full and ready to play orchestral pieces.
There's a pavilion, and then there are the guinea pigs
who are getting ready for their cricket match. And another
thing to point out about these tableau two is they
all have these beautifully soft painted background which seemed striking
(17:32):
against the by this point kind of dusty Victorian animals. Um.
But they add to that nursery rhyme fairytale quality was
trying to go for. For sure. There's one really odd
one that is a When we first started talking about
doing this episode, I was like, Sarah, you have to
see this picture. And it's a monkey riding a goat,
(17:53):
and I don't know why. Every time I look at
it it makes me kind of chuckle because the expression
on the monkey's face is funny. The whole setup is funny.
The proportion of it is just perfectly hilarious. That one
seemed so reminiscent of Barnum to me because you know,
and you can give this to Potter too, who was
not trying to um pull one over on his audience.
(18:16):
It was, you know, this is a this is a
kitten who was born with two heads or whatnot. He
wasn't trying to create creatures that didn't exist. Monkey riding
in the Goat was, yeah, just a strange decision to
combine two animals into into one scene like this, And
(18:38):
then the big one that um, I think for people
that are fans of his work, and it is very striking.
There's one called the Kitten's Wedding, and it is a
full wedding party comprised of kittens in full gown, elaborate
dresses and jewelry and little suits. It's it's fascinating and bizarre,
(18:59):
and there's a growth task element to it, but it's
also one of those things where I can't help but think,
like about the hours of meticulous, exacting labor that goes
into something like this. I mean, he made teeny tiny
costumes to put on each of them, and they're all
quaffed like their hair is done there. It's it's really
(19:21):
quite fascinating to think about how much just he must
have been in love with his art, because he really
did seem to just dedicate his heart and soul to it.
It's easy to focus solely on the mounts though, and
and not look at not look at the kittens dresses,
but look at their face. Looks quite right, you know,
(19:43):
I think, um, probably the goal of many taxidermists today.
And we've heard from we have listeners to who have
written in to tell us about their work. UM, tell
us that it's not stuffing, it's mounting. UM. I think
maybe of the modern goal of tax army is to
look as though the animal whre wants alive. It's the
(20:05):
idea of capturing a natural moment, a living quality about them.
And you certainly cannot say that about Potter's work, And
I don't think that was the goal, but his taxidermy
skills wouldn't have allowed that anyway. I mean, the kittens
don't have they don't look like they were ever alive. No,
they look like dolls. They really do have a doll
(20:27):
like quality by the time he has done humanizing them,
you know, antropomorphizing them with outfits and accessories and just
concepts that they would not be put into. Like you know,
very few kittens get invited weddings in my experience, but
some once in a while it happens. UM. But yeah,
it's not it's not trying to capture that moment of
(20:47):
the animal in the wild. Some of his um malformed
creatures are more intended to look like their life like state. Um,
the these ones. Once he gets into Tambleaux, it's really
about creating something entirely new. Some of the life like quality,
or lack thereof two comes from his skill mounting to
(21:11):
I mean, things didn't always go quite as planned, especially
for more exotic animals. Yeah, because he didn't have practice.
He didn't get to practice with them. He got pretty
good at kittens and apparently was very good with birds.
But there is allegedly a baby giraffe that he attempted
that I could never find a photo for that just
didn't come out quite right. Um, and the lion that
(21:35):
looks like it's wearing saggy panty hose because his the
skin on the legs. You know, it's with any anyone
who's been around a cat, you know that the skin
has some flexibility. But he didn't quite get where it is.
It's like. And just the stance of the lion too.
It's one of those where Okay, maybe he didn't ever
(21:58):
see a living lion. Maybe he didn't have that opportunity
because the lion doesn't stand quite like that. Yeah, it
looks just off. I mean, you can recognize it as
a lion, there is a certain you know, it's a lion,
so there's a certain natural majesty to it. But you
just something's not quite right. Because that reminds me of
(22:18):
of old engravings of descript you know, explorers who have
described animals and then they're illustrated by engravers back in Europe,
and these are African animals or North American animals, and
the illustrator has never seen them and they're trying to
imagine what the animal looks like. Yeah, it's just not
(22:39):
quite right. A plus effort um and he continued to
mount his entire life, and then in nineteen fourteen he
suffered a stroke and he never really fully recovered. And
he was I believe seventy nine at the time, so
it wasn't like he was struck down as a very
young man. Um But then in nineteen eight he passed
(23:00):
away and he had spent his whole life there in Sussex.
Basically he was buried in the village churchyard um and
his museum was left to his daughter Minni Collins and
his grandson Alter also named Walter, but his last name
was Collins Uh and they were the curators of the
museum until the nineteen seventies, and they basically got to
(23:24):
a point where, you know, they just couldn't handle it anymore.
It was too much work. I mean, that's a lot
to keep going, and so um it got moved first
to Arundel, and then in the nineteen eighties it went
to the Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. There was a moment
in the middle where it was almost going to be
shipped off to America because I think that first stopping
(23:45):
point also didn't quite know what to do with it
and didn't have the resources to keep it in good condition.
And then the Jamaica in stepped in and said, no, no,
we will take it. So those people hung on to
it until two thousand three and they decided to liquidate
the collection because their curator had died or had retired
(24:06):
rather I'm sorry, and their taxidermists had passed away. He
had leukemia, and they who had maintained all of these
specimens too, and it's like ten thousand specimens by that point,
and it would be a lot of work too. It's
not something that you can just put in a case
and then forgot about. No, it needs constant care and maintenance,
especially you know, as it gets older, it is more
(24:29):
and more work. You sent me a video from the
nineteen sixties where there's a man who is tending to
some of the specimens, I think, to a cow in
one of the pictures, which he didn't preserve a life
size cow. It's a it with cap skin, but the
(24:49):
curator is carefully dusting and cleaning and then returns the
cow to the chapleau. It would be a tremendous amount
of work. And also I and see why the museums
would be facing problems in this time too, because this
is kind of kitchy that it was very popular in
(25:10):
the Victorian era to go look at mounted animals and
they found it quite charming. There was a growing um
sense of unrest at it, like there wasn't the same oh,
that's magical and charming. It was they saw more of
the grotesque than the charm at that kind of the
cob And like we mentioned earlier, the questions about wait
(25:30):
a minute, is this humane or not? They were all
killed a hundred years ago. Yeah, certain changing tastes played
a role in this. Yeah. So, and it was a Mr.
And Mrs Watts that owned the collection at this point.
So in two thousands three they decided that they would
sell the collection, and they were hoping that someone would
(25:53):
buy the whole thing in one shot and maintain the museum,
because even though it had shifted, it was not in
the original museum, they still considered it the museum um
And unfortunately that did not happen. I mean, there were
many attempts made. There was even a landowner nearby that
was offering a parcel for free and saying, you can
build a new museum here if you can keep the
collection together. But they still needed capital to do all
(26:16):
of that, and it never came through. And it it's
pretty interesting, did numbers when you look at the prices
some of these pieces fetched? And then we'll come back
to sort of some other things that developed or came
to light after the fact. There was a little bit
of scandal, and there were, as I said, there were
lots of people trying to get together the money to
(26:37):
put this thing, to keep it together and to buy
the whole collection outright, but they just never there was
never enough and so eventually, for example the death and
burial of Cock Robin, the original estimate for what I
was going to go for was ten thousand dollars, and
I think it actually went for twenty three thousand, five
(27:00):
hundred British pounds, which is about thirty three thousand dollars
US at the time of the sale, and that was
the high high mark for for the works, but a
lot of them Kitten's Wedding actually it's a little bit
more more. Yeah, that was thirty five thousand dollars UM.
But a lot of them were pulling in in the
in the twenties. UM. Eleven thousand, ten thousand Monkey Monkey
(27:25):
Riding a Goat brought in eleven thousand, six hundred dollars,
which I think is a bargain. But I mean there
really were even though this is years and years later.
I mean this is in the two thousand's, there were
enough people that knew about his work that were very
excited to go. And you can read some accounts online
of people that were like, Okay, I have you know,
(27:46):
I'm throwing out a random number, like ten thousand dollars.
I'm gonna get whatever I can because I really want
a piece of Walter Potter's legacy. Okay. So the crazy
thing is, though, even though these works went for way
more than expected and ultimately pulled in around five thousand,
nine hundred pounds, which, as he said, was twice what
(28:07):
they had predicted. The scandal came because there had apparently
been an offer to keep the collection together, and that
offer had been for way more than that collective price
a million pounds, right, and that was from an artist,
a British artist named Damien Hurst. Uh, and he really
(28:30):
wanted it. I mean, he's a fan of Walter Potter.
He knew about his works. That's known to by the
way for the shark suspended tank. When it came to
light that he had actually made an offer to Bottoms,
which was the auction house that handled the sale, the
Watts were actually really upset because they had never been
informed of this offer. As of two thousand seven, they
(28:53):
were threatening to sue Bottoms for not accepting that offer
and for not informing them, because they were supposed to
have no deified them if they received any serious offer
to keep the collection intact, and let alone one that
was so high above what they actually Yeah, so they
were planning to sue both for monetary damages for um
(29:13):
half a million pounds. But also they really did. I mean,
these are people that actually tended this collection for years.
It's not like they just were trying to turn it
and make a buck. You know. They clearly cared about
it and wanted it to go in one big set,
not piecemeal. It ended up in different lots and which
(29:33):
is I'm sure heartbreaking to people that had tended to
it very lovingly for you know, decades at that point.
So as it stands, Mr Watts has taken it to
Cora and he said, we have tried to discuss this amicably,
but with no joy. They leave us with no option
to let to pursue our complaint in the court. So
that seems to be ongoing. It was no recent update
(29:56):
on it, Yeah I didn't see one, but there is
a different recent update there is, and the collection is
coming together again, although it did briefly um Um Damien
Hurst again and he did buy some of the lots.
Was basically kind of using his connections in the art
world to try to put this together. In the Museum
(30:18):
of Everything, which is a pop up museum in Primrose
Hill in London, which I apparently used to be a
Victoria It was a dairy in Victorian era and then
it became a recording studio get acoustics, and then it
was at least for this time, a pop up museum space,
and so he actually did get together a lot of
the pieces, even some that had been sold to collectors overseas.
(30:41):
I know there were some pieces that were here in
the US that were being shipped over for the collection.
And it ran until the end of at least I
don't know if any portion of it continued um as
an exhibit, but I have a feeling this is probably
not the last time we will see people will trying
to put this together, because it's odd how lovingly people
(31:05):
look at this collection. There's just something about it that
it it makes you want to like pull for it
to all come back together. It does, I mean, I
was it's interesting to look at these and it is
such a i don't know, a strange slice of Victorian life.
But the fascination that people have with it, even though
(31:25):
this is clearly not in style today, is interesting. And
that there are these people who are investing great deals
of money in it too to try to reunite these
pieces and bring them all back together. Yeah, it's I mean,
when you read accounts of people that were trying to
(31:47):
save it during the two thousand three auction. I mean
there's really like a sense a tone of just dismay
and heart heart that it's you know, a pity they
think it's a national treasure. Why isn't you know, some
big institution stepping in and making sure that this you know,
full collection museum doesn't get preserved as it is. And
(32:09):
I wonder to how much of that comes into nostalgia too,
if if this museum was a favorite place for generations
of kids to visit, you know, through through the seventies certainly,
but beyond too, and the Watts were maintaining it. Um,
just like I would be sad if the Capital finally
put away their two headed snake. Don't let me know
(32:31):
if you work there and it's gone now. Um. I
wonder if if people feel that way too, that this
is something um strangely British and worth maintaining and celebrating.
It's also there's such a sweetness to the story that
it was just basically a simple kid in the country
who had a love for a thing and that was
the only thing he really did his whole life. I mean,
(32:52):
he married, he had several children, but it was his
life's work, was his museum and his taxidermy and you know,
mounting animals in new and creative and artistic ways that
no one had ever thought to do before. There's just
you want to cheer for those people, so you know,
you want to maintain what's left of their work when
they're gone, and that he did have success in his
(33:14):
life too. Even if the collection is now going through
there are times being split up. But um, I thought
one of the most interesting points was that at one
point the museum was so popular that they had to
extend the railway platform in town to accommodate the people
that were just visitors coming up, coming out to visit,
(33:34):
coming to see a kitten wedding. They got an invite
to the kitten wedding, they brought their gifts, they're ready
to be fabulous guests and have a good time. So
hopefully we'll see more stories about the Potter collection, and
I would love to see it myself at some point.
That's like one of my bucket list items is to
see at least some decent chunks of the Potter call.
(33:55):
It sounds like kitten wedding is possibly in the States too.
If if is Damien Hurst had had trouble to the collection.
They mentioned it was somewhere, but I don't know if
it's in in a private collection in somebody's house. This
story made me sort of more interested to in just
the history of taxidermy too, and um, you know how
(34:19):
it got to this extremely decorative point in the late
Victorian era, but it's earlier roots too. And and also
I couldn't help but thinking of the health issues to
working with the chemicals. I mean, he lives to a
rifled age. It obviously doesn't seem to have affected his health,
but arsenic there's a lot of a lot of sludge
(34:44):
and gross chemicals that are not kind to the the body. Um. Yeah,
and it's funny too because we love these things so much.
But I the idea of preserving a beloved pet has
certainly fallen out of favor. I mean, I know there
are people that still do it from time to time,
but they're definitely outliers of like the pet parent community.
(35:07):
I know fewer people I don't know anymore personally, I
don't think that's done that, um, but I know people
do it. So it is kind of a it's an
interesting lens that we can kind of flare out where
we really love this, but we would be a little
creeped out by our own you know, animals being part
of something like that. Well, in that game preservation is
(35:29):
still a totally mainstream Yeah, I'm suddenly having a flash
to the Field Museum in Chicago. Have you ever been
a huge taxidermy collection. I have not. I thought of
the Biltmorehouse in there, the Gentleman's Room essentially, Uh, there
(35:49):
is a huge collection of of game. Yeah. If anyone
is in Chicago or is visiting Chicago, go to the
Field and I'm you know, it's it blows you away
just how many specimens they have on display. They even
have the Ghost in the Darkness, the lions that were
murderous um that there was a movie about them there
(36:11):
on display there. I mean, it's just walking through museum
Hall af from Museum Hall of mounted animals. It's kind
of fascinating. I'm sure we're going to hear from our
I hope. I bet they can give us all manner
of insights that you don't always get when you're doing
regular research. There are things that you learn from the
inside of any trade that you would not normally learn
(36:32):
when you're reading about it. Or studying about it, so
I look forward to those, So, Holly, before we go
on to listener mail, we're gonna return to one of
the stuff you missed in history class classic features, Love
of Good Movie Club, any excuse to watch a film?
Time for listener. Now, first of all, I wanted to
(36:55):
do a thank you for listener Kara from Utah, who
as uh she makes her own jewelry and sells it
on Etsy at Caribou Classics, and she was so kind
to mark this post transition by sending ear rings for
the four of us. They're beautiful for Dablina, for you,
(37:16):
for Tracy, for me, and they are lovely. So thank
you so much Kara. And the sporting our or jangly
ear rings. Although not under our under our big headphones,
we were discomfort and this man um, so thank you
to her. Also, Holly, I picked out this email just
for you and for Ulter Potter too. It just seemed
(37:39):
perfectly in line. So this email came from listener Nick,
who is a curator at a collection in London, and
he wrote to suggest we cover Jeremy Bentham. Now I
knew the name Jeremy Bentham because of loss. He's actually
(37:59):
come up last host change Um. Candice came back for
a few episodes to join me and Candice and I
have both big Lost fans. We talked about famous names
on Lost. Jeremy Bentham was one of them, but Nick
suggested that we talked about him in a little more details, specifically,
(38:21):
dedicate an episode to what happened to Jeremy Bentham after
his death. Nick went on to write, he was dissected
by his friends and displayed in his friend Dr Southwood
Smith's surgery until eighteen fifty. After this, he came to
University College London and has been moved around a bit
until coming to rest in our South cloisters. Um, and
(38:46):
so he was suggesting it at his collection. There's quite
a bit on Bentham, but I thought nothing could be
more appropriate than that for the topic we just discussed.
I mean, he's fascinating not display it in a tableau
attending a kitten wedding, but that's really interesting. Maybe maybe
(39:08):
we'll follow up to with a little more how to
Jeremy then thought point um, and then one more thing,
an awesome postcard. It looks exactly like a shingle, like
the kind of store would would hang outside of its door.
I think I might put it outside of my cube.
It's very cute. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective to Baker Street.
(39:29):
So thank you to Tim and Joey from Alexandra Virginia
who sent us this postcard. Although do you think if
I hang this outside my cube our coworkers will start
trying to get me to salve mystery the case of
the missing lunch? There you go, Or you could just
start stealing things and see if people come to you
(39:49):
looking for help. I can cross out Sherlock and write Sarah.
There you go. All sorts of ideas. If you would
like to learn more about the topic we've discussed today,
you can go to our website and enter the term
taxidermy in our search part and you will get how
taxidermy works, which is super interesting and you can really
research almost anything your mind can conjure by visiting our website,
(40:10):
which is how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Sarah Dowdy. And do you
know is Sarah? Do you recall your first exposure to
(00:22):
our topic today? Taxidermy? Well, I was going to save
this story a little bit, but I'm gonna bring it
out now. I was telling it to you already this morning.
I'm pretty sure at the Atlanta's Capital, Georgia State Capitol
here in Atlanta, lovely building, gold Dome. Anybody who's been
(00:43):
to Atlanta's probably not. If it driven up eighty five,
you've seen it. If you grow up in Atlanta, you
go there on many a field trip. And the most
memorable memorable part, at least for me and for I
think most of my classmates, was not the trips to
of the you know, see the legislators or any of that,
(01:04):
what we're excited about government in action. It was the museum,
the Little Capital Museum, which featured lots of strange Georgia history,
but also, most memorably, a two headed calf sweetened a
two headed snake. Welcome to Georgia, visitors, And I said
(01:25):
the CEO this morning. But I went there sort of
on a whim just a few years ago, so as
an adult, and I noticed that those two items were
not as prominently displayed as they used to be. They
almost seem to be displayed just as like a nod.
We know people really liked these, we have to keep
them out, but they're kind of weird and maybe don't
(01:45):
exactly belong in the state capital. Yeah, so that's my answer,
that's my Those are the first clear memories of taxidermia.
I would have been familiar because I both of my
parents are from farm families that hunted, so I know
there were some deer head and I vaguely remember being
at my grandparents house and being barely transfixed by one
(02:07):
particular buck that I had that simultaneously, oh this is
really neat and interesting and oh he was just looking
for a meal and you shot him fandi stad. Yeah,
but I do remember being fascinated and like questioning my
father relentlessly about how did they why? Who thought this
(02:27):
was a good idea? What do you think? Just how?
Like I was completely simultaneously horrified and just fascinated, like
why does this exist? Yeah? Why do we do it?
And then later in my life I was exposed to
the work of the text ermist were talking about today
who anyone who is into taxidermy, I am confident will
(02:48):
know this person the second we say his name, and
it is Walter Potter. And I got exposed to his
work when I was working in the library and a
book that featured one of his pieces came across my
desk and I remember looking at it and then looking
at it again, and looking at it about seventeen more
times in the next twelve minutes. And somebody really put
this together because he did these amazing, wondrously bizarre tableau
(03:14):
with animals. And this is where people do need to
stop for a minute. And if you're on your run, okay,
we'll come back to it last describe a few things,
but you're gonna want the visual for yourself that this
stuff for sure. I know that it makes you wish
that it was a video podcast at a time like this,
But check out these because well to describe them, but
(03:36):
you really need the pictures. And there's some great pictures
fortunately to like modern color pictures. And we'll talk about
kind of where his work is now, um like where
the physical works exist now, um, but we'll start at
the beginning. So he was born in Sussex, um in
(03:56):
five and he worked at his family's in which was
called the White Line in now it's called the Castle
and it's in Bramber. And I have never I've read
several biographical accounts about him. No one ever really talks
about his early childhood. I presume it was probably pretty
standard and kids, you know, kids stuff, working in the
family um in. But then at approximately aged fifteen, he
(04:21):
I'm presuming, because no one ever spelled this out either,
I'm presuming that his pet canary passed before he had
the idea to preserve it. Um, let's hope. So, yeah,
it was a memento almost. Yeah, And this was at
a time when preserving your pets was starting to become
more popular anyway, So it was not necessarily a thing
(04:45):
an idea he would have just magically had on his own.
He may have seen something about it or read something
about it. Not the sign of a disturbed teenage boy,
A normal thing to do. No, he didn't do it
that well though. No, Apparently that first effort was not
so hot, which anytime someone's learning a new craft or trade,
usually the first Go is not going to be a masterpiece.
(05:07):
There has been some discussion, but there's never been any
corroboration that he might have been influenced by an exhibit
that was at the Great Exhibition in London in eighteen
fifty one by Ermann Pluquet, and anyone feel free to
correct me if I mispronounced that. But he had an
exhibit that was Small Animal Taxidermy UM, and it was
(05:28):
UM basically the story of Rennicky the Fox, which is
based on the Wilhelm von Kalbach etchings of Geta's medieval
trickster Tail. So it's kind of like a uh, it's
these if you've never seen that one, it's these hilarious
little rodents that are acting out these adventures and they're
kind of like two. It's like a pair that are
(05:49):
doing one activity after another, like almost like a comic
strip animal tableau. Yeah, so it's not one big tableau
that tells the story. It's it's laid out like sequential art.
I like the idea that he would have been inspired
by the Great Exhibition. To so many of the subjects
we've discussed in the past, including to Blina's last episode.
There was some toilet inspiration that came from the Great Exhibition.
(06:13):
It's an exciting time in London that it is this
sort of cultural point where where all people are exposed
to new things for the first time. And it certainly
seems plausible that this young boy from a country village
would come across something that he found really magical at
the Great Exhibition. Well, and even like I said, there
(06:35):
have not been any corroborative writings to say definitively yes,
he was there, but the Great Exhibition was so big
that people were talking about the things that they had seen,
and it traveled even so U So, yeah, he did
his canary, and there's a great um quote that he
(06:56):
gave apparently in he did a correspondence interview with the
Idler magazine and he says, well, after I'd done my canary,
people encouraged me to persevere. If they saw any bird
or animal they thought I would like, they'd bring it
or send it to me. So he was practicing throughout
these years after he was fifteen, because he did take
(07:16):
a shine to this craft, and then he got the
idea that he could put them together in big works
of art. And that's kind of the turning point here,
not just melting an animal and displaying it uniquely creating
some scene with it. Yeah. It really became almost like
a painter with a paintbrush. He would create entire vistas
(07:37):
and stories using mounted animals. Um And the first big
one is the History of cock Robin, which uh he
used ninety eight birds. I believe that he had been
working on through the years. And this is when he
was nineteen. He had gotten all of those together and
he worked on the history of the original death and burial.
(07:59):
I'm so it wasn't The history um is the original
death and burial of cock Robin. And he worked on
this for years and years. But it basically was a
big funeral procession for cock Robin, including the I believe
it was a sparrow that had shot him with an
arrow with my bow and arrow. Yeah, and there was
an owl grave digger, and you know, the grave is there,
(08:22):
and there are other animals there to pay their respects.
It's like a big story, yeah, inspired by the nursery
rhyme to where all of the birds are picking their
roles the role they will perform during cock Robin's funeral. Um.
And and that's the other major difference here, So putting
(08:44):
the animals together in a tableau, but not in an
animal like way. It's not a natural history museum setting.
It's a human like setting. Yeah, these aren't. Later on
he starts to add even more human accessories to it.
These aren't like clothed yet. There are a couple with
ribbons around their necks. Um. And the owl clearly is
(09:07):
holding a little a little shovel where that he's digging
the grave with. But yeah, this is really you know,
as Sarah said, the very time, that it was mounted
animals doing human things, almost like you would see in
like a children's book or a cartoon. Yeah, that that
nursery vime inspiration is very apparent, and it carries through
(09:27):
his work pretty much his entire life. Uh So at
that point, as his work started to expand, they had
to expand his work area. So he first moved into
a barn loft at his family's house. Uh. And then
once he started creating these big works, they went on
display at the end. Uh And there have been different
(09:50):
accounts of where they went on display and what the
purpose was. And I think it's kind of a case
of revisionist history. Uh. It sounds like his parents were
very encouraging of his work because I'm sure they saw
it as a potential career. Um and he says in
that same interview with the Idler that his father um
(10:12):
eventually built do they call it a t shehad, I
think behind the end where he could put his his
big work on display. And of course then his work
continued to grow and growing. Glenny described the little girls
about his age, you know, teenage girls coming to to
see the see his work for the first time and
(10:33):
leaving some coins behind and starting to get that idea,
Oh wait, maybe I can make money. Yeah, that's where
he got his idea for a museum. Well, and as
you were mentioning too, with other accounts you see of this,
I mean, some are saying it was a direct marketing
strategy that his parents were like, come and see the
(10:53):
end where we have have a high animal check out
of the death of cock Robin. Yeah, exactly. But others
are more like, oh, it kind of happened accidentally. I can't.
I can see it either way. I mean we were
saying earlier, I think I would go slightly out of
my way to visit a inn or a pub that
had these strange scenes, especially since they were pretty trendy
(11:16):
at the time. Yeah, or just you know you happen
upon them. It has nothing to do with marketing the pub. Yes.
So eventually, um in eighteen sixty six he moved his
workshop to a new spot because the stable loft was
not containing his situation anymore. And then again in eighteen
eighty he moved into a specially built building which eventually
(11:36):
became his museum. And that museum wasn't only for his work.
He also collected curiosities from other places, um, including like
a lot of it was natural history type items like
horns and teeth. There were skulls, and he had some
human artifacts like his shoes and jewelry. Uh, just sort
of a random collection hodgepodge of things. This part of
(11:59):
the story reminded me so much of P. T. Barnum's
story and the the era before him of of natural
history museums, I guess, the birth of natural history museums
and going from these collections curios just a strange hodgepodge
of things, some valuable, some just old teeth or horns
(12:23):
or whatnot, all brought together and and the fad for
for seeing those at the time. Yeah, I mean people
were very fascinated by this idea of just looking at
things from other people's lives or other animals that they
maybe hadn't been exposed to in their natural, day to
day life. UM. That it was, as you said, like,
(12:45):
this was really when the idea of the Natural History
Museum was starting to kind of boom and grow, and
the Natural History Museum and the Freak Show Museum, and
it was all kind of two different people were looking
for entertainment a variety of ways at the same time. UM.
And he did start taking on work as um a taxidermist,
(13:09):
like on demand for people, like he would preserve their
pets for them. UM. It was very starting to get
very popular for people to keep mounted animals in their parlors. UM.
Some would be like their personal family pets, but some
also collected like exotic birds. Apparently, UM, Queen Victoria had
some exotic birds, which is the thing I had not
(13:30):
known until we were digging in on research for this. UM.
So he would do all of that, but really he
always wanted to continue creating these tableau And a question
that always comes up whenever you're talking about Walter Potter
with people is where was he getting these animals? Did
he start seeing tableau with twenty kittens and them will
(13:50):
cross your mind? Yeah? So apparently he mentioned in that
that interview that I sided earlier, that people would bring
him what they thought were interesting specimens. But he also
kind of had a deal going on with local farmers.
And this is where our modern pet loving brain has
to kind of close down and be put aside for
a little while, because I have a hard time with
(14:11):
this being like a crazy animal person. Um. You know,
on farms, they don't always spay neuter their pets and
cats are there to work, they're there to keep vermin
at bay. But because they are animals that have not
been fixed, they are having lots of babies and often
way more than really can be sustained by what the
road and population on the farm is. So farmers would
bring him unwanted kittens. I have not really found a
(14:34):
clear indicator as to whether they were already deceased when
they got to Mr Potter or if he took care
of that. Um. But I do know, like I said,
I grew up with some farm family background. For you know,
people that grow up in that it's often and especially
at this period of time. It wasn't like you went
to the vet and had animals euthanized. You kind of
(14:55):
learned to do the dirty work and make the hard
decision of taking care of situations like that. Well, and
the history of the animals seemed to become kind of
an issue too in the nineteen seventies, with the museum
and visitors concerned that it was cruelty to animals, so
much so that museum had to put up a little
placard saying, for one thing, these are over a hundred
(15:18):
years old, and also don't worry. No animals were specifically
killed for the project, which they would have been done
away with one way or the other. This way, they
just went on to become part of art's troubling it is.
I mean, I, as I said, I have to kind
of put away my my animal loving brain for a
(15:40):
moment and just think about, you know, the time period
and how animals you know, we're seeing more as livestock
at that point. It wasn't like their cuddly pet. It
was they were working creatures. But also people would bring
him um unfortunate specimens that had maybe not lived very
long because they were not healthy. Maybe once more in
(16:03):
line with my two headed snake. Um we mentioned earlier.
You can find all manner of images of these things
if you look, and some of them, like some of
the more malformedones there. It's like the kitten with eight
legs and two tails, which is what it's called. It's
very basic. Um kitten with eight legs and yeah, kitten
(16:24):
with eight legs and two tails. There's one that has
There are a couple that have like two faces. There
are um you know. So he did those kind of
about a fascination, and I think he was probably studying
anatomy at the same time, you know what I mean.
It was giving him some clues into how the differences
between right and wrong create the structure properly. But then
(16:47):
he was also doing really artistic works like the Village School,
which is a bunch of tiny bunnies with little chalkboards
and they have little desks, and he would craft all
of their accessories as well, so they're tiny little lesson books.
All of that was handmade. Um. The guinea pigs cricket
match that one has always cracked me up. There is
(17:09):
a full guinea pig band with brass multi Yeah, they
are they are full and ready to play orchestral pieces.
There's a pavilion, and then there are the guinea pigs
who are getting ready for their cricket match. And another
thing to point out about these tableau two is they
all have these beautifully soft painted background which seemed striking
(17:32):
against the by this point kind of dusty Victorian animals. Um.
But they add to that nursery rhyme fairytale quality was
trying to go for. For sure. There's one really odd
one that is a When we first started talking about
doing this episode, I was like, Sarah, you have to
see this picture. And it's a monkey riding a goat,
(17:53):
and I don't know why. Every time I look at
it it makes me kind of chuckle because the expression
on the monkey's face is funny. The whole setup is funny.
The proportion of it is just perfectly hilarious. That one
seemed so reminiscent of Barnum to me because you know,
and you can give this to Potter too, who was
not trying to um pull one over on his audience.
(18:16):
It was, you know, this is a this is a
kitten who was born with two heads or whatnot. He
wasn't trying to create creatures that didn't exist. Monkey riding
in the Goat was, yeah, just a strange decision to
combine two animals into into one scene like this, And
(18:38):
then the big one that um, I think for people
that are fans of his work, and it is very striking.
There's one called the Kitten's Wedding, and it is a
full wedding party comprised of kittens in full gown, elaborate
dresses and jewelry and little suits. It's it's fascinating and bizarre,
(18:59):
and there's a growth task element to it, but it's
also one of those things where I can't help but think,
like about the hours of meticulous, exacting labor that goes
into something like this. I mean, he made teeny tiny
costumes to put on each of them, and they're all
quaffed like their hair is done there. It's it's really
(19:21):
quite fascinating to think about how much just he must
have been in love with his art, because he really
did seem to just dedicate his heart and soul to it.
It's easy to focus solely on the mounts though, and
and not look at not look at the kittens dresses,
but look at their face. Looks quite right, you know,
(19:43):
I think, um, probably the goal of many taxidermists today.
And we've heard from we have listeners to who have
written in to tell us about their work. UM, tell
us that it's not stuffing, it's mounting. UM. I think
maybe of the modern goal of tax army is to
look as though the animal whre wants alive. It's the
(20:05):
idea of capturing a natural moment, a living quality about them.
And you certainly cannot say that about Potter's work, And
I don't think that was the goal, but his taxidermy
skills wouldn't have allowed that anyway. I mean, the kittens
don't have they don't look like they were ever alive. No,
they look like dolls. They really do have a doll
(20:27):
like quality by the time he has done humanizing them,
you know, antropomorphizing them with outfits and accessories and just
concepts that they would not be put into. Like you know,
very few kittens get invited weddings in my experience, but
some once in a while it happens. UM. But yeah,
it's not it's not trying to capture that moment of
(20:47):
the animal in the wild. Some of his um malformed
creatures are more intended to look like their life like state. Um,
the these ones. Once he gets into Tambleaux, it's really
about creating something entirely new. Some of the life like quality,
or lack thereof two comes from his skill mounting to
(21:11):
I mean, things didn't always go quite as planned, especially
for more exotic animals. Yeah, because he didn't have practice.
He didn't get to practice with them. He got pretty
good at kittens and apparently was very good with birds.
But there is allegedly a baby giraffe that he attempted
that I could never find a photo for that just
didn't come out quite right. Um, and the lion that
(21:35):
looks like it's wearing saggy panty hose because his the
skin on the legs. You know, it's with any anyone
who's been around a cat, you know that the skin
has some flexibility. But he didn't quite get where it is.
It's like. And just the stance of the lion too.
It's one of those where Okay, maybe he didn't ever
(21:58):
see a living lion. Maybe he didn't have that opportunity
because the lion doesn't stand quite like that. Yeah, it
looks just off. I mean, you can recognize it as
a lion, there is a certain you know, it's a lion,
so there's a certain natural majesty to it. But you
just something's not quite right. Because that reminds me of
(22:18):
of old engravings of descript you know, explorers who have
described animals and then they're illustrated by engravers back in Europe,
and these are African animals or North American animals, and
the illustrator has never seen them and they're trying to
imagine what the animal looks like. Yeah, it's just not
(22:39):
quite right. A plus effort um and he continued to
mount his entire life, and then in nineteen fourteen he
suffered a stroke and he never really fully recovered. And
he was I believe seventy nine at the time, so
it wasn't like he was struck down as a very
young man. Um But then in nineteen eight he passed
(23:00):
away and he had spent his whole life there in Sussex.
Basically he was buried in the village churchyard um and
his museum was left to his daughter Minni Collins and
his grandson Alter also named Walter, but his last name
was Collins Uh and they were the curators of the
museum until the nineteen seventies, and they basically got to
(23:24):
a point where, you know, they just couldn't handle it anymore.
It was too much work. I mean, that's a lot
to keep going, and so um it got moved first
to Arundel, and then in the nineteen eighties it went
to the Jamaica Inn in Cornwall. There was a moment
in the middle where it was almost going to be
shipped off to America because I think that first stopping
(23:45):
point also didn't quite know what to do with it
and didn't have the resources to keep it in good condition.
And then the Jamaica in stepped in and said, no, no,
we will take it. So those people hung on to
it until two thousand three and they decided to liquidate
the collection because their curator had died or had retired
(24:06):
rather I'm sorry, and their taxidermists had passed away. He
had leukemia, and they who had maintained all of these
specimens too, and it's like ten thousand specimens by that point,
and it would be a lot of work too. It's
not something that you can just put in a case
and then forgot about. No, it needs constant care and maintenance,
especially you know, as it gets older, it is more
(24:29):
and more work. You sent me a video from the
nineteen sixties where there's a man who is tending to
some of the specimens, I think, to a cow in
one of the pictures, which he didn't preserve a life
size cow. It's a it with cap skin, but the
(24:49):
curator is carefully dusting and cleaning and then returns the
cow to the chapleau. It would be a tremendous amount
of work. And also I and see why the museums
would be facing problems in this time too, because this
is kind of kitchy that it was very popular in
(25:10):
the Victorian era to go look at mounted animals and
they found it quite charming. There was a growing um
sense of unrest at it, like there wasn't the same oh,
that's magical and charming. It was they saw more of
the grotesque than the charm at that kind of the
cob And like we mentioned earlier, the questions about wait
(25:30):
a minute, is this humane or not? They were all
killed a hundred years ago. Yeah, certain changing tastes played
a role in this. Yeah. So, and it was a Mr.
And Mrs Watts that owned the collection at this point.
So in two thousands three they decided that they would
sell the collection, and they were hoping that someone would
(25:53):
buy the whole thing in one shot and maintain the museum,
because even though it had shifted, it was not in
the original museum, they still considered it the museum um
And unfortunately that did not happen. I mean, there were
many attempts made. There was even a landowner nearby that
was offering a parcel for free and saying, you can
build a new museum here if you can keep the
collection together. But they still needed capital to do all
(26:16):
of that, and it never came through. And it it's
pretty interesting, did numbers when you look at the prices
some of these pieces fetched? And then we'll come back
to sort of some other things that developed or came
to light after the fact. There was a little bit
of scandal, and there were, as I said, there were
lots of people trying to get together the money to
(26:37):
put this thing, to keep it together and to buy
the whole collection outright, but they just never there was
never enough and so eventually, for example the death and
burial of Cock Robin, the original estimate for what I
was going to go for was ten thousand dollars, and
I think it actually went for twenty three thousand, five
(27:00):
hundred British pounds, which is about thirty three thousand dollars
US at the time of the sale, and that was
the high high mark for for the works, but a
lot of them Kitten's Wedding actually it's a little bit
more more. Yeah, that was thirty five thousand dollars UM.
But a lot of them were pulling in in the
in the twenties. UM. Eleven thousand, ten thousand Monkey Monkey
(27:25):
Riding a Goat brought in eleven thousand, six hundred dollars,
which I think is a bargain. But I mean there
really were even though this is years and years later.
I mean this is in the two thousand's, there were
enough people that knew about his work that were very
excited to go. And you can read some accounts online
of people that were like, Okay, I have you know,
(27:46):
I'm throwing out a random number, like ten thousand dollars.
I'm gonna get whatever I can because I really want
a piece of Walter Potter's legacy. Okay. So the crazy
thing is, though, even though these works went for way
more than expected and ultimately pulled in around five thousand,
nine hundred pounds, which, as he said, was twice what
(28:07):
they had predicted. The scandal came because there had apparently
been an offer to keep the collection together, and that
offer had been for way more than that collective price
a million pounds, right, and that was from an artist,
a British artist named Damien Hurst. Uh, and he really
(28:30):
wanted it. I mean, he's a fan of Walter Potter.
He knew about his works. That's known to by the
way for the shark suspended tank. When it came to
light that he had actually made an offer to Bottoms,
which was the auction house that handled the sale, the
Watts were actually really upset because they had never been
informed of this offer. As of two thousand seven, they
(28:53):
were threatening to sue Bottoms for not accepting that offer
and for not informing them, because they were supposed to
have no deified them if they received any serious offer
to keep the collection intact, and let alone one that
was so high above what they actually Yeah, so they
were planning to sue both for monetary damages for um
(29:13):
half a million pounds. But also they really did. I mean,
these are people that actually tended this collection for years.
It's not like they just were trying to turn it
and make a buck. You know. They clearly cared about
it and wanted it to go in one big set,
not piecemeal. It ended up in different lots and which
(29:33):
is I'm sure heartbreaking to people that had tended to
it very lovingly for you know, decades at that point.
So as it stands, Mr Watts has taken it to
Cora and he said, we have tried to discuss this amicably,
but with no joy. They leave us with no option
to let to pursue our complaint in the court. So
that seems to be ongoing. It was no recent update
(29:56):
on it, Yeah I didn't see one, but there is
a different recent update there is, and the collection is
coming together again, although it did briefly um Um Damien
Hurst again and he did buy some of the lots.
Was basically kind of using his connections in the art
world to try to put this together. In the Museum
(30:18):
of Everything, which is a pop up museum in Primrose
Hill in London, which I apparently used to be a
Victoria It was a dairy in Victorian era and then
it became a recording studio get acoustics, and then it
was at least for this time, a pop up museum space,
and so he actually did get together a lot of
the pieces, even some that had been sold to collectors overseas.
(30:41):
I know there were some pieces that were here in
the US that were being shipped over for the collection.
And it ran until the end of at least I
don't know if any portion of it continued um as
an exhibit, but I have a feeling this is probably
not the last time we will see people will trying
to put this together, because it's odd how lovingly people
(31:05):
look at this collection. There's just something about it that
it it makes you want to like pull for it
to all come back together. It does, I mean, I
was it's interesting to look at these and it is
such a i don't know, a strange slice of Victorian life.
But the fascination that people have with it, even though
(31:25):
this is clearly not in style today, is interesting. And
that there are these people who are investing great deals
of money in it too to try to reunite these
pieces and bring them all back together. Yeah, it's I mean,
when you read accounts of people that were trying to
(31:47):
save it during the two thousand three auction. I mean
there's really like a sense a tone of just dismay
and heart heart that it's you know, a pity they
think it's a national treasure. Why isn't you know, some
big institution stepping in and making sure that this you know,
full collection museum doesn't get preserved as it is. And
(32:09):
I wonder to how much of that comes into nostalgia too,
if if this museum was a favorite place for generations
of kids to visit, you know, through through the seventies certainly,
but beyond too, and the Watts were maintaining it. Um,
just like I would be sad if the Capital finally
put away their two headed snake. Don't let me know
(32:31):
if you work there and it's gone now. Um. I
wonder if if people feel that way too, that this
is something um strangely British and worth maintaining and celebrating.
It's also there's such a sweetness to the story that
it was just basically a simple kid in the country
who had a love for a thing and that was
the only thing he really did his whole life. I mean,
(32:52):
he married, he had several children, but it was his
life's work, was his museum and his taxidermy and you know,
mounting animals in new and creative and artistic ways that
no one had ever thought to do before. There's just
you want to cheer for those people, so you know,
you want to maintain what's left of their work when
they're gone, and that he did have success in his
(33:14):
life too. Even if the collection is now going through
there are times being split up. But um, I thought
one of the most interesting points was that at one
point the museum was so popular that they had to
extend the railway platform in town to accommodate the people
that were just visitors coming up, coming out to visit,
(33:34):
coming to see a kitten wedding. They got an invite
to the kitten wedding, they brought their gifts, they're ready
to be fabulous guests and have a good time. So
hopefully we'll see more stories about the Potter collection, and
I would love to see it myself at some point.
That's like one of my bucket list items is to
see at least some decent chunks of the Potter call.
(33:55):
It sounds like kitten wedding is possibly in the States too.
If if is Damien Hurst had had trouble to the collection.
They mentioned it was somewhere, but I don't know if
it's in in a private collection in somebody's house. This
story made me sort of more interested to in just
the history of taxidermy too, and um, you know how
(34:19):
it got to this extremely decorative point in the late
Victorian era, but it's earlier roots too. And and also
I couldn't help but thinking of the health issues to
working with the chemicals. I mean, he lives to a
rifled age. It obviously doesn't seem to have affected his health,
but arsenic there's a lot of a lot of sludge
(34:44):
and gross chemicals that are not kind to the the body. Um. Yeah,
and it's funny too because we love these things so much.
But I the idea of preserving a beloved pet has
certainly fallen out of favor. I mean, I know there
are people that still do it from time to time,
but they're definitely outliers of like the pet parent community.
(35:07):
I know fewer people I don't know anymore personally, I
don't think that's done that, um, but I know people
do it. So it is kind of a it's an
interesting lens that we can kind of flare out where
we really love this, but we would be a little
creeped out by our own you know, animals being part
of something like that. Well, in that game preservation is
(35:29):
still a totally mainstream Yeah, I'm suddenly having a flash
to the Field Museum in Chicago. Have you ever been
a huge taxidermy collection. I have not. I thought of
the Biltmorehouse in there, the Gentleman's Room essentially, Uh, there
(35:49):
is a huge collection of of game. Yeah. If anyone
is in Chicago or is visiting Chicago, go to the
Field and I'm you know, it's it blows you away
just how many specimens they have on display. They even
have the Ghost in the Darkness, the lions that were
murderous um that there was a movie about them there
(36:11):
on display there. I mean, it's just walking through museum
Hall af from Museum Hall of mounted animals. It's kind
of fascinating. I'm sure we're going to hear from our
I hope. I bet they can give us all manner
of insights that you don't always get when you're doing
regular research. There are things that you learn from the
inside of any trade that you would not normally learn
(36:32):
when you're reading about it. Or studying about it, so
I look forward to those, So, Holly, before we go
on to listener mail, we're gonna return to one of
the stuff you missed in history class classic features, Love
of Good Movie Club, any excuse to watch a film?
Time for listener. Now, first of all, I wanted to
(36:55):
do a thank you for listener Kara from Utah, who
as uh she makes her own jewelry and sells it
on Etsy at Caribou Classics, and she was so kind
to mark this post transition by sending ear rings for
the four of us. They're beautiful for Dablina, for you,
(37:16):
for Tracy, for me, and they are lovely. So thank
you so much Kara. And the sporting our or jangly
ear rings. Although not under our under our big headphones,
we were discomfort and this man um, so thank you
to her. Also, Holly, I picked out this email just
for you and for Ulter Potter too. It just seemed
(37:39):
perfectly in line. So this email came from listener Nick,
who is a curator at a collection in London, and
he wrote to suggest we cover Jeremy Bentham. Now I
knew the name Jeremy Bentham because of loss. He's actually
(37:59):
come up last host change Um. Candice came back for
a few episodes to join me and Candice and I
have both big Lost fans. We talked about famous names
on Lost. Jeremy Bentham was one of them, but Nick
suggested that we talked about him in a little more details, specifically,
(38:21):
dedicate an episode to what happened to Jeremy Bentham after
his death. Nick went on to write, he was dissected
by his friends and displayed in his friend Dr Southwood
Smith's surgery until eighteen fifty. After this, he came to
University College London and has been moved around a bit
until coming to rest in our South cloisters. Um, and
(38:46):
so he was suggesting it at his collection. There's quite
a bit on Bentham, but I thought nothing could be
more appropriate than that for the topic we just discussed.
I mean, he's fascinating not display it in a tableau
attending a kitten wedding, but that's really interesting. Maybe maybe
(39:08):
we'll follow up to with a little more how to
Jeremy then thought point um, and then one more thing,
an awesome postcard. It looks exactly like a shingle, like
the kind of store would would hang outside of its door.
I think I might put it outside of my cube.
It's very cute. Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective to Baker Street.
(39:29):
So thank you to Tim and Joey from Alexandra Virginia
who sent us this postcard. Although do you think if
I hang this outside my cube our coworkers will start
trying to get me to salve mystery the case of
the missing lunch? There you go, Or you could just
start stealing things and see if people come to you
(39:49):
looking for help. I can cross out Sherlock and write Sarah.
There you go. All sorts of ideas. If you would
like to learn more about the topic we've discussed today,
you can go to our website and enter the term
taxidermy in our search part and you will get how
taxidermy works, which is super interesting and you can really
research almost anything your mind can conjure by visiting our website,
(40:10):
which is how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.