There was a taxidermy sale

An ermine tea party, exhibited at the Great Exhibition (Crystal Palace), London, 1851; I’m pretty sure this is from Pevsner’s High Victorian Design, which is out of copyright and should be read by everyone. Way more fun than Pioneers of Modern Design!

Holiday vacation extended a little longer than expected, so my apologies for not having alerted everyone to a delightful taxidermy sale, which was last week. I’d like to think it was no coincidence that it happened the day after Nikolaus Pevsner's birthday. That was definitely a missed opportunity to have a great lecture on Victorian taste. But maybe thinking like that is why I no longer do programming at cultural institutions?

Anyway, Nicky loved taxidermied ermines, particularly of the poker-playing type, as the most perfect distillation of how the industrial era's taste went totally off the rails. These ermines lack card playing skills, but there's a sale next week that will scratch that itch... (Sworders is doing its “out-of-the-ordinary” sale. It is aptly named.)

For a demonstration that things intersect in weird ways, who needs Lalanne, when a perfectly charming sheep could have been yours for a mere £850 hammer?

There was a whole section of antler-furniture. Franz Ferdinand would have been a very happy shopper at this sale, but I suppose archdukes don’t buy secondhand? He took out enough central European wildlife on his own to outfit several hunting lodges (Christie’s, I think, had a sale a few years back. It was no more tasteful than this one.)

This chair is still available, and I bet there's a chance you could get it below the opening estimate if you act fast! (If only I lived in the UK, I would have the most fabulously decorated house.)

But, perhaps, the best object at the sale is the ungodly mix of various woodland creatures, a mythical Bavarian beast, a Wolpertinger!