Potter's Museum of Curiosity: Hail and Farewell
One of the treats of moving house is coming across little bits of forgotten stuff. Much to my joy, one of the things that appeared recently (out of what box? from whence? don't know) is the catalog to a museum I found in Arundel, Sussex, in 1977, Potter's Museum of Curiosity.
The last time I was in Arundel, I went looking for it, but it was gone. Turns out it'd been bought up and sent to Cornwall. And I find now that it's gone entirely; it was sold in pieces at auction in 2003.
So you can't go there. And I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, cause I can't go there, either, and it was the best museum in the entire world.
It made no sense, really. It was packed from floor to ceiling with carefully labeled crap, in no relation to the carefully labeled crap around it. The entire lot had been collected, and in part created, by Walter Potter (1835-1918), an eccentric Victorian taxidermist, who amused himself, when he wasn't stuffing beloved dead pets for his neighbors, by stuffing entire litters of kittens, puppies, and bunnies, and dressing them up and arranging them in tableaux.
Little dead bunnies at school.
Little dead squirrels smoking and playing cards.
Little dead kittens getting married.
I'm glad to tell you, though, that although Potter's Museum is gone, there's a San Francisco taxidermist/artist who admires his work; click here for a page devoted to the master; scroll down for more pictures of the tableaux from hell than I've linked to.
And.
It's possible to buy things from this artist, I think, though the dead kitten with a plaster crown might not be for sale; maybe not the fortune-telling chicken, either.
But I am SO in love with this artist. I do believe I require lots of stuffed dead dressed up things for the new house. They'll look so nice in the log room, don't you think?
Oh! My! God! It's a dead cat with wings!
The king is dead; long live the queen.
The last time I was in Arundel, I went looking for it, but it was gone. Turns out it'd been bought up and sent to Cornwall. And I find now that it's gone entirely; it was sold in pieces at auction in 2003.
So you can't go there. And I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, cause I can't go there, either, and it was the best museum in the entire world.
It made no sense, really. It was packed from floor to ceiling with carefully labeled crap, in no relation to the carefully labeled crap around it. The entire lot had been collected, and in part created, by Walter Potter (1835-1918), an eccentric Victorian taxidermist, who amused himself, when he wasn't stuffing beloved dead pets for his neighbors, by stuffing entire litters of kittens, puppies, and bunnies, and dressing them up and arranging them in tableaux.
Little dead bunnies at school.
Little dead squirrels smoking and playing cards.
Little dead kittens getting married.
I'm glad to tell you, though, that although Potter's Museum is gone, there's a San Francisco taxidermist/artist who admires his work; click here for a page devoted to the master; scroll down for more pictures of the tableaux from hell than I've linked to.
And.
It's possible to buy things from this artist, I think, though the dead kitten with a plaster crown might not be for sale; maybe not the fortune-telling chicken, either.
But I am SO in love with this artist. I do believe I require lots of stuffed dead dressed up things for the new house. They'll look so nice in the log room, don't you think?
Oh! My! God! It's a dead cat with wings!
The king is dead; long live the queen.
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