Category

Before The Glass

The story starts here with the world as it was before animals were put behind glass. Explore the cultural journey of Victorian naturalists and see how their interests shaped Victorian taxidermy and natural history collections. Follow the Gentlemen Collectors, the early Menagerie, Zoo, and Circus and the 19th Century Exhibitions & World Expos.

Five gorilla death masks arranged in a grayscale collage on a dark background, framed.

Before The Glass

The Wonder and Wounds of the Belgian Congo

Advertising poster for Bostock and Wombwell

Before The Glass

Wombwell’s Menagerie

POLITOS MENAGERIE

Before The Glass

Polito’s Menagerie and The Exeter Exchange

Menagerie at Tower of London

Before The Glass

The Tower of London Menagerie

front of the Booth Museum in Brighton

Before The Glass

Edward Booth – Victorian Gentleman Collector

Before The Glass

John Gould

Before The Glass

Sir John Henry Greville Smyth

John James Audubon portrait

Before The Glass

John James Audubon, Naturalist, Scientist, Artist

Before The Glass

Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe

Victorian Taxidermy and animals reflected in Edwin Landseer painting

Before The Glass

The Zoo Animals Story

drawing of herd of Giraffes at the Regents Park ZSL

Before The Glass

ZSL Library at Regents Park

Edward Gerrard giant of the British Taxidermy landscape

Before The Glass

History of the Zoological Society London

Thomas Henry Bowyer-Bower expedition with Walter Burton Victorian Naturalist 1886

Before The Glass

Thomas Henry Bowyer-Bower

the Tower of London Menagerie illustrations

Before The Glass

The Menagerie

Orchid and Hummingbird Charles Darwin

Before The Glass

Darwin, Wallace and Buffon: their importance to natural history

Before The Glass

The Upper Class Decoration of Country Houses with Taxidermy

Ploucquets tableaux pic from the Antiques Trade Gazette of 1981

Before The Glass Victorian Taxidermy

Hermann Ploucquet’s sensational tableaux at The Great Exhibition 1851

India at the Great Exhibition 1851 drawing

Before The Glass

Taxidermy At The Great Exhibition 1851

Lord-Walter-Rothschilds-carriage-drawn-by-zebras-and-a-disguised-horse-in-front-of-the Royal Albert Hall

Before The Glass

Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild of Tring

Before The Glass

The Victorian Attitude to Death

Theodore Gericault painting Head of a Lioness

Before The Glass

Victorian taxidermy – eternalising beautiful creatures

Taxidermy at the Great Exhibition 1851

Before The Glass

The Great Exhibition 1851

Engraving-by-William-Hogarth

Before The Glass

Cabinets of Curiosities or Wunderkammers

Before The Glass

Victorian feather fashion craze

CALKE ABBEY A VICTORIAN WALL COLLAGE

Before The Glass

The history of Calke Abbey