Hummingbirds, like the many specimens in this impressive display at the Natural History Museum, were – along with parrots and birds-of-paradise – highly prized by collectors and owners of cabinets of curiosity.
14 : Hummingbird cabinet of curiosities, Natural History Museum, London
19th century
Hummingbirds, like the many specimens in this impressive display at the Natural History Museum, were – along with parrots and birds-of-paradise – highly prized by collectors and owners of cabinets of curiosity.
Collections of natural history specimens were not always the preserve of museums, and much of the credit for the discovery and spread of knowledge of biodiversity belongs initially with private collectors, as the great age of exploration flowered hand-in-hand with exploitative colonialism.
The first ‘cabinets of curiosity’ were created in the 16th century all over imperial Europe, and were collections of interesting and worldly objects, both natural and man-made, intended to inspire thought and discussion, as well as to display the owner’s power, knowledge and reach. Usually display cabinets, they were also sometimes entire rooms with then uncategorised natural objects, ranging from fossils, ancient statues, unusual tools and musical instruments to skulls, horns, pressed flowers, seashells and, of course, stuffed birds, all arranged according to the aesthetics of their owner.
As the world became more penetrated by western discovery, natural history specimens were a great source of the intrigue and interest of such cabinets. The first known illustrated collection dedicated to this subject was a 1599 engraving in Dell’Historia Naturale by Ferranto Imperato of Naples, which shows audacious use of every surface of the room to display artefacts, including the ceiling, which holds an alligator among many suspended trophies.
Other earlier collections were described in the literature and also served as repositories for scientific description and endeavour. Such a cabinet was that of Ole Worm of Aarhus, Denmark, who – despite several dubious specimens of mythological creatures – was able to correctly assign a long spiral tusk to Narwhal, rather than fancifully to a Unicorn, as most people thought. Worm’s catalogue served as a scientific resource, too, and showed that birds-of-paradise possessed feet, a fact hitherto unknown until his writings in the 17th century, as specimens were usually prepared in situ without feet.
Worm was contemporary with Sir Hans Sloane, a London doctor who had catalogues and collections which included many bird specimens, and these formed the central collection of the British Museum upon his death. Other labelled, sourced and annotated private accumulations founded collections at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and others across Europe, creating a foundation for taxonomic studies that continue to the present day.
As such collections held materials that were more correctly identified, their owners specialised and many 19th-century cabinets became solely dedicated to certain groups, such as coral, or invertebrate fossils, or (as in the photograph above), hummingbirds. These New World nectar specialists were ideal for the moneyed collector, being beautiful, manageable in size, and speciose, and became highly popular among the ranks of collectors. Notable for the number and variety of specimens, this particular hummingbird collection is believed to have belonged to William Bullock, one of the first curators of the museum, who was almost obsessed with the family.