photo credit: Tennants
Eastern Quoll fetches £4,000 (plus fees)
Rare Eastern Quoll by James Gardner
In the UK in August 2025 this very rare and interesting specimen of an Australian Eastern Quoll, mounted by James Gardner of London, was sold at auction at Tennant’s.
Quolls (genus Dasyurus) are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. They are primarily nocturnal, and spend most of the day in a den. Of the six species of quoll, four are found in Australia and two in New Guinea. The Quoll originally derived from the now extinct Thylacine. They are now only found in Tasmania.
I was intrigued because this taxidermy Quoll had not been sold on the market before, so I wondered where it had originally come from.
photo credit: Tennants
James Gardner, Taxidermist to Sir John Henry Greville Smyth
James Gardner – taxidermist to Sir John Henry Greville Smyth
The company of James Gardner, Taxidermists & Naturalists, were known to have had an association with the 19th century naturalist and explorer, Sir John Henry Greville Smyth, so I looked at the possibility that it came from one of the expeditions that Greville Smyth had made to Australia. I couldn’t commit definitively to that, but it does seem like a real possibility.
The label inside the beautiful original Victorian dome proposes that it was mounted by Gardner at 426 Oxford Street, London. The label, however, could have been reproduced because it is suspiciously bright and unblemished, although it’s possible that it had been well preserved and protected hidden in the groundwork in the dome.
In dating the dome, it’s interesting to know that the James Gardner Company used 426 Oxford Street as a sales showroom for over 40 years, from 1840 up to about 1882, so a date of approx early 1880’s seems feasible for this piece, because Gardner closed that shop in 1882, and in 1884 Greville Smyth was married, after which he made no further expeditions.
It is conjecture on my part, but entirely possible, that the Quoll was once brought back from Australia or Tasmania by Sir John Henry Greville Smyth.
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