Saturday, December 22, 2012

I'm Dreaming of a White Taxidermy Christmas

Nothing says snowy white winter here in Southern California like lovely white taxidermy!
Some of my favorite things are my white and albino taxidermy animals.
They go so well with sun bleached skulls and white Parian mourning statues.
They are so perfect next to dark coffins and pale white bones.
I'm also very fond of the Woodland-Invades-the-Edwardian-Parlor theme.
 This lovely antique cased owl was a recent trade.
 I love how it looks displayed with the death's head moth and the Victorian taxidermy birds.
 Majolica vases with Renaissance ladies add a nice touch of jewel colors.
A lovely vintage photo of Evelyn Nesbit in a Japanese kimono with her languid gaze.
Queen of the Prairie Dogs!
 I'm not sure that headless child mannequins quite go with this theme, but they insist on hanging around.
Over by my case of white taxidermy stands my antique taxidermy African Wild dog.  He came from a Belgian natural history museum that was closing down.  He is of Victorian vintage, as is the full-body striped hyena that I bought from that same collection.
Very spooky huge taxidermy piece!
 That concludes this little visit to my parlor.
 Miss Havisham wishes each and every one of you a very Merry Hexmas and a cool Yule!

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Pandora's Parlor on Science Channel's Death Dealers

In case you missed it, my collection was featured on the Science Channel's pilot series "Death Dealers."  I put together a little clip showing the part I was on which featured a death mask.  There is more to the show including a fun part about antique hearses.  At the end of the show the Death Dealers have a forensic expert take a look at the death mask I sold them and the expert confirms that it is indeed a death mask and that it is quite old as I suspected - at least 150 years old!  He also goes into interesting details about how the person likely died.  Enjoy!