A cluster of rats
Categories: Curiosities, history, Museums • Tags: japan, museum, netsuke, rat, sculpture, unsettling
Ridiculously photogenic New Zealand criminal
Categories: history, Museums • Tags: criminal, daniel lohill, daniel tohill, humor, mug shot, museum, new zealand, nostalgia, photography, time, victorian era
Cleaning the elephant skin
My last post on the inflatable skins in James Lomax’s Untitled (Me and My Friend) (2011) reminded me of this ridiculously interesting series of photographs from the archives of the American Museum of Natural History. Taken between 1933-1935 by Thane L. Bierwert, they show museum staff engaged in the task of cleaning and re-mounting the skin of an elephant for display. As well as offering a great (and I suspect rare) behind-the-scenes glance of a 1930s natural history museum, that […]
Categories: history, Museums • Tags: elephant, history, museum, skin, taxidermy, unsettling
James Lomax’s inflatable skins
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the preserved skins of exotic animals from faraway lands were brought back to Europe by explorers. The hides would be handed over to taxidermists whose job it was to prepare them for display by stuffing the skins and giving them a life-like appearance. However, the taxidermists often just had to guess at the shape and appearance of these unfamiliar animals based on crude sketches and descriptions, resulting in grotesque physical distortions which would […]
Categories: Contemporary Art • Tags: art, body, grotesque, inflatable, installation, sculpture, taxidermy, unsettling
More hidden mothers in Victorian photography
Categories: Curiosities, history • Tags: death, hidden mothers, images, photography, unsettling, victorian era
The mysterious coffins of Arthur’s Seat
I was recently in Edinburgh for the really incredible Sensualising Deformity conference, and while there I was reminded of my one of my favorite museum objects, in the National Museum of Scotland: the mysterious little coffins of Arthur’s Seat. In 1836, five boys were hunting rabbits on the north-eastern slopes of Arthur’s Seat, the main peak in the group of hills in the center of Edinburgh. In a small cave in the crags of the hill they stumbled across seventeen […]
Categories: Curiosities, history, Museums • Tags: archaeology, coffins, curiosities, figurine, museum, mystery, outsider art, sculpture
GUEST POST: Mrs Marvel on ‘Things I’m Glad Are Out of Style’
Categories: Guest Post, history • Tags: fashion, guest post, humor, photography, style, victorian era
Leeches! Leeches!! Leeches!!!
Leeches have been used for bloodletting for centuries. In fact, they became so popular in the 18th and 19th centuries that they were almost farmed to extinction in Europe. Although falling out of fashion in the later half of the 20th century, their medical use is making a comeback in microsurgery and reconstructive surgery due to the anti-coagulant properties of their secretions, which is useful for reducing blood clots and venous pressure from pooling blood, and for healing skin grafts. […]
Categories: Curiosities, history • Tags: advertisements, ephemera, illustration, images, leeches, medicine, nostalgia, science, unsettling, victorian era
A Map of a Woman’s Heart, 1833-1842
Published by D.W. Kellog between 1833-1842, this amusing Map of the Open Country of Woman’s Heart paints the “fairer sex” in a rather unflattering light. From the mole traps in the Province of Deception, to the city of Moi-meme in the Land of Selfishness, to the Plains of Susceptibility in the Region of Sentimentality, this ever-so-charming illustration certainly demonstrates this Victorian gentleman’s equal taste for maps and disdain for women. I suspect this fellow must have had a recent broken […]
Categories: Curiosities, history • Tags: anatomy, art, humor, love, map, victorian era
The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things 