[Taxidermy] Trade card for G. Pickhardt, Preserver of Birds, Animals and Fishes &c...
Chalk Farm, London, 1860s
75 by 115mm (3 by 4½ inches)
taxidermist’s trade card, engraved with various animals (after Barlow) and his details, verso with an albumen photograph showing a monkey skeleton, and the same animal with fur added and presented as a stuffed specimen, inscribed in ink ‘Now in Stonyhurst’. The Jesuit College at Stonyhurst has a renowned Taxidermy collection in part donated by the eccentric old boy and naturalist Charles Waterton. "Squire" Waterton was born at Walton Hall, Wakefield, Yorkshire to Thomas Waterton and Anne Bedingfield. He was educated at Stonyhurst College in Lancashire and he records in his autobiography that while he was at the school, "by a mutual understanding, I was considered rat-catcher to the establishment, and also fox-taker, foumart-killer, and cross-bow charger at the time when the young rooks were fledged. ... I followed up my calling with great success. The vermin disappeared by the dozen; the books were moderately well-thumbed; and according to my notion of things, all went on perfectly right."
[ref: 10975] £350
