More pics at the link.
Posted on 08/31/2007 6:15:15 PM PDT by lowbridge
£87,000 Government grant for... dead dog museum By ANDY DOLAN
Last updated at 08:24am on 31st August 2007
Even by the barmy standards of modern Arts grants, it sounds a barking mad scheme.
One of Britain's most bizarre museum collections has just been awarded an £87,000 grant - to spruce up its display of 88 stuffed dogs.
It was part of a new £4million funding package from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and charitable body the Wolfson Foundation for an array of projects in 43 museums and galleries across England.
Yesterday the Natural History Museum at Tring, Hertfordshire, said its share of the money would be spent on improving visitor access and lighting in a gallery housing the dogs alongside stuffed ' amphibians, reptiles, flightless birds and marsupials'.
The collection in the museum's Gallery Six includes the bodies of legendary racing greyhound Mick the Miller, who won 46 out of 61 races during his career from 1928 to 1931.
A spokesman for the museum said the 88 stuffed domestic dogs illustrated the impact of selective breeding and mainly date from the early 20th century.
He said: "These exhibits are a great way to discover how the breed has evolved."
The Tring museum was founded in 1889 by Walter Rothschild, the second Baron Rothschild, to house his burgeoning private collection of insects and stuffed animals.
It is now a branch of the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.
Its ornithological collection of more than one million specimens is housed along with stuffed zebra, crocodiles, antelope and other examples of 19th-century taxidermy.
But it is its canine collection that is one of the star attractions.
Defending the latest round of awards, Culture Minister Margaret Hodge said: "This year's grants go to an imaginative array of projects in national institutions, university collections and well-loved local museums and galleries.
"This funding will give visitors the best possible experience of some wonderful collections."
And it will help give these faithful old friends a whole new lease of life.
LOL
M. Vick, curator-in-chief
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector?
The taxidermist takes only your skin.
- Notebook, 1902
MARK TWAIN
It sounds like this place wants both!
It is interesting. I mean, look at the picture of the bulldog - bulldogs don’t look anything like that anymore.
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