The Taxidermy Timeline

    From Egyptian animal mummies to foam manikins and digital archives — four thousand years of preserving the animal world, era by era.

    Ancient Origins

    c. 2200 BC – 1500

    Animal preservation begins as ritual rather than display: Egyptian embalmers treat dogs, cats, birds, and even a hippopotamus, but nothing resembling a mounted specimen survives from the ancient world.

    1. c. 2200 BC

      Egyptian animal mummification

      Embalmers preserve pets and sacred animals — dogs, cats, ibises, crocodiles — using natron salts and resinous wrapping. Preservation for the afterlife, not the display case.

    2. c. 1500

      Renaissance collections emerge

      European nobles and apothecaries begin assembling cabinets of curiosities. Dried birds, fish skins, and shells appear alongside minerals and antiquities, preserved by simple stuffing and drying.

    Curiosity Cabinets

    1500 – 1780

    The first recognisable mounted specimens appear in European collections. Survival is rare — feathers and fur perish — so the earliest documented mounts are thick-skinned reptiles.

    1. 1534

      Ponte Nossa crocodile

      A crocodile hung in the church at Ponte Nossa, Italy, is documented — among the oldest surviving suspended mounts, and still displayed today.

    2. 1627

      St Gallen crocodile

      A mounted crocodile goes on open display at the monastery of St Gallen, Switzerland, where it has remained ever since — nearly 400 years of continuous exhibition.

    3. 1680s

      Stuffed birds in natural history cabinets

      Collectors like the Tradescants in England preserve birds by skinning and stuffing with tow and spices, though insect damage destroys most early work within a generation.

    The Chemical Revolution

    1780 – 1830

    Arsenical soap solves preservation, and taxidermy becomes a stable trade. The word itself is coined, and the first printed manuals appear.

    1. 1743

      Bécœur's arsenical soap

      Jean-Baptiste Bécœur, an apothecary in Metz, perfects an arsenic-based preservative soap that reliably protects skins from insects. He keeps the recipe secret; it is published after his death and transforms the craft.

    2. 1803

      The word 'taxidermy' is coined

      Louis Dufresne of the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris popularises taxidermie — from the Greek taxis (arrangement) and derma (skin).

    3. 1820s

      First printed taxidermy manuals

      Instruction books for amateurs appear in French and English, spreading museum techniques beyond institutional walls for the first time.

    The Victorian Heyday

    1830 – 1900

    Taxidermy peaks as a popular art: cased birds, glass domes, anthropomorphic tableaux, sporting trophies, and a booming trade of commercial practitioners and supply houses.

    1. 1851

      The Great Exhibition

      John Hancock's 'Struggle with the Quarry' and other dramatic groups stun visitors at London's Crystal Palace, establishing narrative taxidermy as high art.

    2. 1857

      Fred Kaempfer opens in Chicago

      Fred Kaempfer establishes one of America's earliest taxidermy supply houses, serving the growing frontier trade in specimens and materials.

    3. 1861

      Ward's Natural Science Establishment

      Henry Ward's Rochester firm begins supplying specimens, mounts, and instruction to museums worldwide — industrialising natural history itself.

    4. 1872–73

      The Hayden Expedition

      Field collecting for the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories builds the foundations of American taxidermy and Western natural history.

    5. 1880s

      Hornaday at the Smithsonian

      William T. Hornaday, chief taxidermist at the Smithsonian, collects and mounts American bison to document a species being exterminated — the specimen cabinet becomes an argument for conservation.

    6. 1880s–90s

      Walter Potter's tableaux

      Walter Potter's whimsical anthropomorphic scenes — rabbits at school, kittens at a tea party — define the decorative extreme of Victorian taxidermy.

    7. 1884

      Van Ingen & Van Ingen founded in Mysore

      Eugene Van Ingen establishes a taxidermy firm in Mysore, India, that will become the largest in the world, serving Maharajas and shikar hunters across the Empire.

    The Museum-Science Era

    1900 – 1945

    Sculptural technique replaces stuffed skins: clay modelling over armatures, hollow manikins, and the great habitat dioramas. Correspondence schools spread the trade to anyone with a mailbox.

    1. 1900s–10s

      Rowley and Akeley revolutionise mounting

      John Rowley engineers lightweight mannequins and steel armatures; Carl Akeley perfects clay-over-armature sculpture cast into hollow forms — the basis of museum-quality mounting ever since.

    2. 1903

      The Northwestern School of Taxidermy

      J.W. Elwood's Omaha correspondence school begins mailing lessons nationwide, breaking the old apprenticeship monopoly on the craft.

    3. 1909

      Akeley's gorilla expedition

      Carl Akeley collects mountain gorillas for the American Museum of Natural History, pioneering the habitat diorama groups that will define the great museum halls.

    4. 1920s

      The amateur instruction boom

      Manton, Farnham, and Devereaux publish practical manuals and run schools, making home taxidermy a mainstream hobby.

    5. 1928

      Van Ingen publishes 'The Preservation of Shikar Trophies'

      The Mysore firm's guide to field care of trophies becomes standard reading for sportsmen across British India.

    Post-War Transition

    1945 – 1975

    Museums shift from display to interpretation, the Victorian collections fall from fashion, and the trade fragments into scattered self-taught practitioners — while home tanning and hobby manuals keep the craft alive.

    1. 1946

      Farnham's home-taxidermy guides in print

      A. B. Farnham's practical books on mounting and tanning become standard references for the post-war hobbyist.

    2. 1952

      Decker's 'Practical Home Tanning'

      Maurice H. Decker's manual brings traditional fur dressing to a new generation of outdoorsmen.

    3. 1950s–60s

      The Hastings Rarities affair

      The exposure of fabricated rare-bird records — traced to taxidermist George Bristow — forces a reckoning over specimen fraud in British ornithology.

    4. 1972

      National Taxidermists Association founded

      The NTA is chartered in the United States, beginning the organised revival of the trade with conventions, seminars, and competitive judging.

    The Modern Era

    1975 – present

    Foam forms industrialise production, conservation law reshapes what can be mounted, and the internet turns a secretive trade into a global, open community of practitioners and collectors.

    1. 1970s–80s

      Polyurethane foam manikins

      Commercially produced foam forms replace hand-built bodies for most commercial work, cutting mounting time dramatically and standardising quality.

    2. 1973

      Endangered Species Act

      Conservation legislation in the US and CITES internationally transform the legal landscape: permits, provenance records, and pre-act documentation become central to the trade.

    3. 1990s

      Freeze-dry preservation

      Freeze-drying offers an alternative for small specimens and pets, sparking ongoing debate between traditional and freeze-dry camps.

    4. 2000s–present

      The digital revival

      Online forums, video instruction, and digital archives open the craft's literature to everyone. Historic manuals once traded hand-to-hand are now digitised and freely studied — the mission of this archive.

    Explore the evidence

    Every era on this timeline lives on in the books, catalogs, and photographs preserved in our archive. Read the primary sources the practitioners left behind.

    Book catalog History of taxidermy guide All history essays