On the ethics of taxidermy provenance

There are three questions we ask before we take a taxidermy specimen into inventory. Where did it come from. When was it prepared. Can we prove both.

Most of what passes through the shop answers those questions cleanly: Victorian and Edwardian domestic pieces, mid-century natural history teaching mounts, twentieth-century sporting trophies with paperwork. A minority of what is offered to us does not answer them cleanly, and that is where the work of this policy begins.

The legal frame, briefly

In the United States, the movement and sale of animal specimens is governed by a stack of overlapping instruments. The Endangered Species Act of 1973. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, which is stricter than most people realize and which prohibits the possession of even a single feather from most native songbirds without a permit. The Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act. And overlaying all of these, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species — CITES — which came into force in 1975 and which classifies species into three appendices with escalating restrictions.

The date that matters most in the trade is the CITES effective date for a given species, because pre-Convention specimens are broadly legal to buy and sell within the country of possession, provided the age can be documented. This is why a Victorian tiger rug and a 1980s tiger rug are entirely different legal objects, though physically similar.

What documentation actually looks like

Provenance for a nineteenth-century mount is rarely a single piece of paper. It is usually a chain: a maker's label glued inside the case, an auction lot number cross-referenced to a catalog, a probate inventory listing the piece by description, a photograph in a period album. The Rowland Ward firm labeled its work well. So did Peter Spicer of Leamington and the various Gerrard family workshops. A domestic amateur mount from 1890, on the other hand, may have nothing but the box it sits in.

We work with what is there and we say plainly what we cannot verify. A piece described in our catalog as "attributed to the Spicer workshop, circa 1895, unlabeled" means: we believe it based on construction and materials, but we cannot prove it, and the price reflects that uncertainty.

Provenance is not decoration. It is either evidence or it is a story someone is telling you, and the two need to be labeled differently.

What we will not handle

Legality is the floor, not the ceiling. There are specimens we decline to broker even when the paperwork is complete.

We do not handle great ape material of any age. The trade is legal for pre-Convention pieces with documentation, but the market it feeds is one we would rather not participate in.

We do not handle sea turtle shell, cheetah, snow leopard, or the great cats generally, again regardless of vintage. The same reasoning applies. A robust market for Victorian tiger rugs creates cover for material that is not Victorian at all.

We do not handle any specimen where the documentation smells wrong — where dates and labels do not agree, where a seller cannot say who they bought it from, where the physical construction does not match the claimed period. Modern polyurethane forms in a mount claimed to be from 1910 are not subtle if you know what you are looking at.

We do handle domestic bird specimens with pre-1918 documentation, most European small mammals with clear provenance, invertebrate collections, and the broad general run of natural history pieces from the great age of the amateur naturalist.

Restoration ethics

An old mount that has lost an eye, a claw, or a section of its case can usually be restored without misrepresentation. Our rule is that restoration should be visible on close inspection, reversible where possible, and documented in the file that accompanies the piece. A replacement glass eye should be noted. A rebuilt wing joint should be noted. A relined case should be noted.

We do not repaint faded plumage. We do not add glass eyes to specimens that were originally shown eyeless. We do not "improve" the pose of a Victorian mount to suit modern taste; the mount is a document of the maker's choices as much as it is of the animal.

The moth question

Most inherited natural history collections arrive with insect damage. Anthrenus and Attagenus are the enemies, and by the time you can see the frass, they have already been through the piece. We treat every incoming specimen in a controlled-atmosphere chamber before it goes into inventory. This is unglamorous work and it is nonnegotiable.

A closing note

If you are looking to place a family piece, or to acquire something for a study or a museum, we welcome the conversation. We would rather answer a difficult question honestly than close an easy sale. Our natural history desk answers letters at some length, and we ask more questions than we are asked.