Leading Tennants Auctioneers’ Natural History and Taxidermy Sale on the 30th November was an early 20th century cased complete natural skeletal reconstruction of an adult duck-billed platypus which sold highly at £5,000 (all figures excluding buyer’s premium). The duck-billed platypus has long caught our curiosity, and in the late 18th century it was no different when the zoologist, George Shaw produced the first published illustration of the duck-billed platypus in his notable book, The Naturalist's Miscellany. Famously, even Charles Darwin was also perplexed by it, and debates still arise today of its biology.
The successful sale included a well-balanced assortment of high quality modern and period taxidermy by renowned artists all of which are in much demand for their historical importance and artistry, seeing high prices and attracting a loyal following.
The sale saw memorable hammer prices for modern taxidermy by Carl Church and Brian Lancaster. Selling for £4,200, a cased Ural Owl by world renowned and award-winning taxidermist Carl Church of Pickering, North Yorkshire – who authored the widely regarded manual, Bird Taxidermy: The Basic Manual – sold above its estimate. An Indian Peacock mounted by Brian Lancaster of Bedale, North Yorkshire sold extremely well at £1,600.
From the natural history, a Woolly Rhinoceros Skull of the late Pleistocene era, Russia, stirred considerable interest and reached a hammer price of £4,200. Woolly Rhinoceros remains have been known long before the species was described and were the basis for some mythical creatures. Native peoples of Siberia believed their horns were the claws of giant birds. One of the earliest scientific descriptions of an ancient rhinoceros species was made in 1769, when the naturalist Peter Simon Pallas wrote a report on his expeditions to Siberia where he found a skull and two horns in the permafrost.
Period taxidermy performed well seeing a late Victorian Spotted Kiwi by Henry James Burton, 191 Wardour Street, Oxford Street, London, reach a hammer price of £3,800. A late Victorian Display of British Garden Birds, circa 1880-1900 caught substantial attention with its brilliant technicoloured and kaleidoscopic display of twenty birds selling for £3,000 far surpassing its estimate.
A Kodiak Brown Bear, circa 1917 by Rowland Ward Ltd, the famous taxidermists of big game whose Piccadilly-based showroom “The Jungle” attracted clients from a young Winston Churchill, Walter Rothschild, Edward VII, and George V, sold particularly well at £3,000, reflecting the Rowland Wards’ monumental importance in the history of taxidermy. Another Rowland Ward of a cased snowy owl made £2,200.
View results
