The Taxidermy of Mr. Walter Potter and his Museum of Curiosities

By Melissa Milgrom

Athletic toads? Rats gambling in a dollhouse of decadence? How about bespectacled gentlemen lobsters?

No, this isn’t Wes Anderson’s sequel to Fantastic Mr. Fox, but the work of English Victorian taxidermist Mr. Walter Potter. Potter was famous for his over-the-top anthropomorphic scenes—kittens at the tea table; guinea pigs playing cricket—which were displayed in his Museum of Curiosities from 1861 until 2003 when his wondrous collection was sold in a contentious auction, which I attended in Cornwall.

One of England’s oldest private museums, Potter’s belonged to the era of the amateur nature lover when museums were spirited jumbles, not the sober typologies they would become post-Darwin. Potter’s verged on the freakish: random, cluttered, crammed to the rafters with curios and oddities, weird accumulations and creatures that were stuffed, pickled, dissected, and deformed. And I was lucky, though it filled me with sadness, to wander through Potter’s crooked corridors on its very last day.

It’s remarkable—attempts to save it by Damien Hirst and others failed— that Potters managed to evade the hammer this long; nearly every museum of its kind—Peale’s in Philadelphia; Scudder’s in New York, and London’s Museum of Stuffed Animals—had long shut down. Potter’s hung on for 147 years. And that’s not surprising given Potter’s staggering attention to detail. In “The Rabbits’ Village School,” for example, forty-eight newborn rabbits, each with its own writing slate, sit in a one-room schoolhouse, knitting socks, learning about Westminster Bridge, and solving math equations. Potter carved the inkwells out of chalk.

Born in 1835 in Bramber, Sussex, Potter dropped out of school to pursue his main passion in life: taxidermy. He began humbly enough with his pet canary, followed by a family of his pet albino rats (Lot 93), before advancing to dogs, cats, and common English birds. Eventually Potter could support himself as a taxidermist, however stuffing other people’s pets did not satisfy his creative impulse. That only happened after the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first world’s fair, where taxidermists displayed their work for a public that was crazy about animals, the more exotic the better. Taxidermy was a big part of that curiosity.

As naturalists brought exotic species home from other continents, armchair enthusiasts filled their parlors and drawing rooms with domed birds, butterfly cases, even their stuffed pets. Every claw and hoof was transformed into some exciting new object: everything from “zoological lamps” (kerosene lamps made out of preserved monkeys, swans, and other creatures) to “His” and “Her” elephant heads. Some hairstyles even incorporated preserved hummingbirds. Soon every town in England could support a part-time taxidermist. In fact, taxidermy was a prerequisite skill for any serious naturalist—including Charles Darwin, who hired a freed Guyanese slave to give him lessons.

Had Potter attended the Great Expo (very likely) he would have seen among the taxidermy displays a comic depiction of Goethe’s fable Reinecke the Fox reenacted with semi-human foxes. Sounds childlike—and it was in the best, most passionate way—but in the days before irony anthropomorphism was a form of endearment (imagine Beatrix Potter, no relation). More so, the facial expressions were expertly manipulated, raising the taxidermic bar and inspiring followers.

Known as the Grotesque School, “mirth-provoking” characters were the equivalent of a blockbuster movie. Queen Victoria herself stopped to linger and laugh at a frog shaving another frog. And taxidermists began transforming all sorts of animals into tiny humans: crows playing violin, frogs doing the cancan, squirrels as Romeo. None were as ambitious as Mr. Walker Potter. In 1854 Potter discovered the poem “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin” and in a burst of passion knew what to do with his storehouse of specimens. Seven years and 98 English birds later, Potter unveiled “Cock Robin” at his parents’ inn, causing a sensation and launching his famous museum. Fastidiously rendered, a few feathered mourners actually shed glass tears. On September 23, 2003, “Cock Robin” sold for $53,000. The previous day people stopped by for one last glimpse of a world that vanished long ago.

Melissa Milgrom, the author of Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy, has written for several national publications including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. She has also produced radio segments for Public Radio International’s Studio 360. She holds a master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and lives in New York City.

IMAGE: Walter Potter seated with a stuffed fox.

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