This very large, cased diorama of various specimens, all mounted within a jungle themed setting of bamboo, tall grasses and reeds was sold at auction in the UK in January 2021 at Tennants UK and fetched £25,000 (significantly above its guide price).

It was part of the sale of the historical collection of Hodnett Hall in Shropshire, the seat and home of the Heber Percy family for generations.  Once big game hunters who travelled the world, between 1870 – 1930 they brought back specimens and had them sent to the best taxidermists in Britain, including Rowland Ward and Henry Shaw.

In 2021 the family modernised parts of their historic house to create better facilities for tourists and as a result sold off the historic collection of taxidermy which had been housed in an exterior building, to make way for a new tea-room.

Download the catalogue of the Hodnett Hall Sale which contains all the items in the sale as well as a history of some of the collection here (courtesy of Tennants UK)

The Rowland Ward Australian diorama was acquired at the Tennant’s sale by fine art antiques dealer Spectandum Art in Belgium and subsequently restored by specialist Lieven Castelain. His paper published at NatSCA describes its restoration.  It is now in the collection of a private buyer.

The contents of the case were sent to Rowland Ward‘s workshop in London at “The Jungle” Piccadilly by the Heber-Percy family circa 1891-1892. It contained a full family of Kangaroos, a Koala Bear clinging to a tree branch, a Pelican, a Black-necked Stork, a Python coiled around a tree branch, two Tawny Frogmouth’s, two Laughing Kookaburra’s, two Fruit bats, a Goanna Lizard, a Bearded Dragon, a Rainbow Lorikeet,  a Torresian Imperial Pigeon enclosed within a very large oak framed three-glass floor standing display case.

The case label bore a copper shield describing the origin of the contents and those who collected them ”Queensland, Collected by A.H.P, – A.H.H.P, – J.R.H.P, 1892”.