Well-known Taxidermists

Martha Maxwell (1831-1881)
Martha Maxwell was a person of the very first women of all ages known to equally collect and preserve her own skins. She was born in Pennsylvania but moved to the Colorado Territory in 1860s, in the course of the 1st wave of the Pike’e Peak Gold Hurry, where she became an attained hunter. Motivated by the do the job of a regional taxidermist, she commenced skinning animals for creative endeavors. Interestingly, Maxwell was a vegetarian all over her lifetime.

A self-educated naturalist and artist, Maxwell’s perform helped observed present day taxidermy and transformed the glimpse of purely natural history museums forever. In 1868 she opened a museum in Boulder, and she also showed her preserved animals and birds at equally the Colorado Agricultural Society Truthful in Denver and at the American Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia.

The Maxwell Owl (Otus asio maxwelliae) is named following Martha Maxwell. She was the 1st female to have a subspecies named after her.

The Van Ingen brothers
Van Ingen & Van Ingen was an Indian enterprise specializing in taxidermy. For the duration of its heyday, it was run by the three brothers Botha, De Damp and Joubert Van Ingen who have been experienced by their father Eugene Van Ingen, founder of the taxidermy organization. The Van Ingens lived and labored in Mysore, Karnatak in the southern part of India and became well-known for their head mounts, total mounts, flat animal rugs and rug mounts with connected heads. In 2004, author Pat Morris interviewed the 92 12 months outdated Joubert for the e book “Van Ingen & Van Ingen – Artists in Taxidermy”. Joubert is the last remaining survivor of the 3 brothers.

The Van Ingen brothers famously preserved shikhar looking trophies in lifelike poses for the maharajas of India. Their function was deemed incomparable to any other taxidermist in the environment. The household worked mainly with tigers, leopards and bears and their e-book “The Preservation of Shikar Trophies, Artists in Taxidermy, Mysore” is regarded an important source for details on the abundance of wild leopards and tigers as soon as observed in the wild.

The business was lively from the turn of the very last century to 1998.

Louis Dufresne (1752-1832)

Louis Dufresne was one particular of the naturalists traveling on the ship Astrolabe on its extraordinary journey. The ship sailed initial to Madeira, Tenerife, Trinidad and the coastline of Brazil. It then rounded Cape Horn and landed at Concepción and the Sandwich Islands. The journey continued together the northern coastline of the Americas all the way up to Alaska. Immediately after checking out Monterey, the expedition crossed the Pacific and landed in Macao, China. At some point, the ship returned to France with an abundance of knowledge.

In 1793, Dufresne began performing as taxidermist and curator at Muséum countrywide d’Histoire naturelle in Paris. In the early 1800s, he popularized the use of arsenic soap for preserving birds – a method which experienced produced it feasible for the museum to build the world’s premier collection of birds.

Dufresne also managed a personal selection. By 1818, he experienced compiled about 1 600 chicken specimens, 800 eggs from all-around the entire world and 12 000 bugs. The selection also involved a large amount of shells, fossils, corals and amphibians. Right now, the this collection is a portion of the Royal Scottish Museum, soon after becoming ordered by the University of Edinburgh in 1819.