Results: Natural History & Taxidermy Sale 17th April

The Natural History and Taxidermy Sale on 17^th April was topped by a superb example of a Bengal Tiger, mounted by Van Ingen and Van Ingen of Mysore, India, which sold for £16,500 (figures exclude buyer’s premium). Dated January 24^th 1930, the adult male tiger was taken in Baghraj Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, Central India, and has been carefully kept within the same family since 1930. The vendor’s grandfather, who was born in 1888, was in Political wing of the Indian Civil Service, and was the Viceroy’s representative in the Princely States, advising various Maharajas. Being involved in entertaining visiting dignitaries, he partook in several tiger hunts.

The sale also offered the Taxidermy Collection of Colonel Stephenson Robert Clarke, businessman, British Army officer, botanist, naturalist, ornithologist, horticulturist, art collector and landowner. The majority of the 61 lots were specimens taken by Stephenson Clarke on four hunting trips to Africa between 1909 and 1924 and were mounted by the renowned Rowland Ward Ltd of Piccadilly, London. Several of the lots are recorded in Rowland Ward's Records of Big Game. Leading the collection was a Rowland Ward-mounted Dibatag, taken in Somalia and dated 1919; this is a very unusual specimen to be found mounted in taxidermy form, and sold for £4,200.

Further notable lots in the sale included a large cased Resplendent Quetzal from the early 20^th century (sold for £4,000), a Magnificent Rifle Bird from circa 1865-80 by George Ashmead & Co. (sold for £2,200), and a late Victorian Gharial Crocodile Head Mount (sold for £2,600). Selling well above estimate, too, was an Aldabra Giant Tortoise Shell from the late 19^th/early 20^th century, which sold for £2,200.